技术断供与自主创新激励:纵向结构的视角

Technology Blockade and Indigenous Innovation Incentives:A Vertical Structure Perspective

参照芯片断供的现实背景,本文在“制造商—零售商”纵向结构框架下考察了技术断供对自主创新激励的影响。技术断供意味着,技术领先的上游国外制造商不能向某个下游零售商提供中间品。分析表明,技术断供前,技术落后的上游本地制造商缺乏自主创新激励的重要原因是创新的“货币外部性”:尽管其技术追赶可以通过压缩国外制造商的抽租能力而让下游厂商获益,但其本身却无法通过赢得下游市场并从中获利。技术断供后,被断供下游零售商只能从本地制造商采购中间品,这种“绑定效应”部分内化了本地制造商的货币外部性,进而会提高其自主创新激励;但与此同时,技术断供也会提高外国制造商为阻止本地制造商技术追赶而实施人才圈定策略的激励和能力。所以,为破解外国制造商的“人才圈定”策略,需要以政府采购等方式对本地制造商进行有相当力度且有持续性的创新政策支持。

Since the beginning of the trade friction between China and the United States in 2018,the United States has imposed technology blockade on several Chinese companies in core areas such as chips,advanced materials and equipment,systems,and specialized software.This paper explores the impact of the technology blockade,using the case of Huawei's chip cut off,on the incentive for indigenous innovation within the context of a manufacturer-retailer vertical structure.Our analysis shows that prior to the technology blockade,the lack of motivation for indigenous innovation among underdeveloped local upstream manufacturers was caused by the pecuniary externality of innovation.This externality occurs when a local manufacturer makes efforts to catch up technologically beneficial retailers by reducing the foreign manufacturer's rent-extracting ability,but the local manufacturer cannot reap the profits from winning downstream markets.The technology blockade partially internalizes this externality by forcing the blockaded retailer to purchase intermediate products from the local manufacturer.However,the technology blockade also raises the foreign manufacturer's incentives and ability to implement a talent foreclosure strategy to prevent the local manufacturer from catching up.To address this challenge,the paper recommends providing local manufacturers with substantial and sustained innovation policy support in the form of government procurement.We build a vertical structure in which a local upstream manufacturer and a foreign upstream manufacturer compete for the downstream retailers through secret contracts.The local manufacturer is assumed to fall behind the foreign manufacturer technologically and cannot quickly catch up.The government is also capable of encouraging local manufacturer's innovation through procurement.In the first stage,if talents are not scarce,the local manufacturer decides whether to hire them.If talents are scarce,the local manufacturer and the foreign manufacturer offer salaries simultaneously,and talents decide where to work.In the second stage,the government buys the intermediate goods from the local manufacturer.Before the technology blockade,both manufacturers offer secret contracts to the retailers simultaneously,but after the technology blockade,the foreign manufacturer is prevented from supplying the intermediate goods to one retailer.In the third stage,the downstream retailers engage in Bertrand competition under capacity constraints.Our analysis first considers the market dynamics before the technology blockade.With its technological superiority,the foreign manufacturer can provide intermediate goods to the retailers at lower fees,excluding the local manufacturer from the market.Moreover,the foreign manufacturer has an incentive to implement a talent foreclosure strategy to prevent the local manufacturer from catching up and compressing its profit rents.Next,we examine the impact of the technology blockade.The results show that while the pecuniary externality of innovation for the local manufacturer is partially internalized,leading to increased incentives to innovate,the technology blockade also alleviates the foreign manufacturer's commitment problems and raises its incentives and ability to implement a talent foreclosure strategy.The final outcome depends on the amount of government procurement and the talents'ability to improve the local manufacturer's technology.This paper sheds light on why the“chip-making boom”failed in the 1990s and illustrates the market incentive effects and talent foreclosure strategy brought on by the technology blockade.It provides a theoretical basis for implementing relevant policies after the technology blockade and underscores the importance of providing local manufacturers with considerable and sustained innovation policy support in the form of government procurement.Only by reducing the technological gap between local and foreign manufacturers can local manufacturers and blockaded downstream retailers compete effectively in the market.