公平竞争审查制度能否促进企业创新?——基于规制行政垄断的视角

Can the Fair Competition Review System Promote Enterprise Innovation? From the Perspective of Regulating Administrative Monopoly

公平有序的竞争环境是市场经济体制的核心。作为维护公平竞争秩序和规制行政垄断的重大制度安排,《公平竞争审查制度》有助于优化市场竞争环境,破除妨碍要素和资源自由流动的障碍,从而推动经济高质量发展。文章基于2012-2020年我国A股上市公司数据,以《公平竞争审查制度》的出台作为准自然实验,运用双重差分法考察了该制度实施对企业创新活动的影响。研究发现,《公平竞争审查制度》的实施可以显著提升行政垄断行业内企业的创新水平,且更多表现为实质性创新水平的提升。渠道检验表明,该制度主要通过政府补贴、信贷配给和市场竞争机制,促进企业创新水平提升。进一步研究发现,该制度对企业创新的促进作用在国有企业和融资约束较严重的企业,以及市场化程度较低地区和非高科技行业的企业中更加显著;此外,产业政策会削弱《公平竞争审查制度》的创新促进作用。文章丰富了企业创新影响因素的相关研究,为《公平竞争审查制度》的实施效果提供了评价依据,而且对于深化垄断行业规制改革、推动建立高标准市场体系以及构建新发展格局具有重要的政策意义。

Under the special institutional situation in China, the government and its subordinate departments use public power to unfairly restrict and exclude market competition, which will affect the operation activities of enterprises. Existing studies have found that administrative monopoly will hinder the free flow of factors and resources, and restrict and distort competition, which is not conducive to the improvement of enterprise innovation level.In order to control administrative monopoly and maintain the market environment of fair competition, the Fair Competition Review System was officially promulgated in June 2016. Based on the data of A-share listed companies from 2012 to 2020, this paper uses the DID method to examine the impact of the implementation of the Fair Competition Review System on enterprise innovation. The study finds that the implementation of the Fair Competition Review System significantly improves the innovation level of enterprises in the administrative monopoly industry, and it is more manifested in the improvement of substantive innovation level. The channel test result shows that the Fair Competition Review System mainly promotes the innovation level of enterprises through government subsidies, credit rationing, and market competition mechanism. Further research shows that the promotion effect of the Fair Competition Review System on enterprise innovation is more significant in state-owned enterprises and enterprises with greater financing constraints. The heterogeneity test based on the regional and industrial level shows that this promotion effect is more obvious in regions with low marketization process and in enterprises in non-high-tech industries. In addition, industrial policies will weaken the innovation promotion effect of the Fair Competition Review System. This paper enriches the relevant research on factors affecting enterprise innovation, provides reference for the evaluation of the practical effect of the Fair Competition Review System, and has important policy significance for strengthening the regulatory reform of monopoly industries, promoting the establishment of a high standard market system, and building a new development pattern.The marginal contributions are as follows:(1) This paper studies the impact of administrative monopoly regulation on enterprise innovation, which enriches the research on the impact of changes in the external institutional environment on enterprise innovation.(2) There are few empirical studies on how the Fair Competition Review System affects the behavior of micro market subjects. This paper not only provides new evidence on the economic consequences of regulating administrative monopoly, but also has important policy significance for strengthening the regulatory reform of monopoly industries, promoting the establishment of a high standard market system, and building a new development pattern.(3) This paper examines the role of regulating administrative monopoly on enterprise innovation, and provides inspiration for the further implementation of the anti-administrative monopoly system in the future.