高质量发展背景下经济数字化与企业投资

Economy digitization and enterprise investment:Based on the natural experimental evidence of“national pilot city of information benefits the people”

当下以数字化为核心表征的信息技术革命给企业带来了全面且深远的影响。基于2014年“信息惠民国家试点城市”政策对经济数字化的外生冲击,通过双重差分模型识别经济数字化与企业投资之间的因果关系。研究表明:“信息惠民国家试点城市”政策对企业投资具有促进作用,且这一促进作用源自试点政策促进了经济数字化,使企业能以更低的成本获得更多的外部融资从而缓解了融资约束;企业拥有更多的投资机会、增加了更多的异地投资,可以更有效地把握投资机会。异质性分析表明这一促进效应主要存在于小规模、非国有、资本技术密集型以及高素质人才占比更高的企业。研究成果不仅有助于为数字化时代的企业经营管理提供参考,而且也为政府进一步推进国家信息化建设、实现经济高质量发展提供参考。

Following the agricultural revolution and the industrial revolution,human beings are experiencing the information technology revolution characterized by digitization.This new economic form has brought about a comprehensive and far-reaching impact on people’s production and life as well as the global economy.The biggest feature of economic digitization is that it can greatly improve the availability of information,accelerate the speed of information flow,reduce the cost of information transmission,and effectively reduce the information asymmetry among stakeholders.Whether and how this feature of economic digitization has an impact on economic society,especially enterprises which are one of the main entities of micro-economy,is worthy of further study.For enterprises,investment decision is the first link of financial decision,which has important research significance.Existing studies have paid little attention to whether the digital economy will affect enterprise investment,mainly examining the impact of digital finance on enterprise investment efficiency.However,it is one-sided to study the impact of digital transformation of a certain entity on enterprise investment,because economic digitization is a comprehensive transformation involving various economic entities.Therefore,this paper takes data of Shanghai-Shenzhen A-share listed companies from 2010 to 2016 as research samples,and uses the exogenous impact of the“National Pilot City of Information Benefits the People”policy on economic digitization in 2014 to design a difference in different model to identify the causal relationship between economic digitization and enterprise investment.Then this paper studies the mechanism of economic digitization on enterprise investment from the following channels,including financing constraints and investment opportunities.After that,this paper discusses the impact of the“National Pilot City of Information Benefits the People”policy on enterprise investment from the aspects of enterprise scale,property right nature,factor intensity,and human capital structure.The results of empirical research are as follow:(1)After the implementation of the“National Pilot City of Information Benefits the People”policy,the investment scale of enterprises in pilot cities increases significantly compared with those in the control group,that is,the policy has a promoting effect on enterprise investment.(2)The above conclusion is still valid after placebo test,propensity score matching method,reconstruction of enterprise investment variable,exclusion of samples of municipalities and provincial capitals,adjustment of sample period,and exclusion of interference from other policies.(3)The promotion effect of the“National Pilot City of Information Benefits the People”policy on enterprise investment is derived from the effective development of the digital economy caused by the pilot policy.On the one hand,banks and other financial institutions as well as capital market investors are willing to provide enterprises with more financial support at a lower cost,thus easing the financing constraints of enterprises.On the other hand,enterprises have more investment opportunities,increasing more investments in other places,and can realize investment opportunities better and more effectively.(4)The promotion effect of the implementation of the“National Pilot City of Information Benefits the People”policy on enterprise investment mainly exists in small-scale enterprises,non-state-owned enterprises,capital and technology intensive enterprises,and enterprises with higher proportion of high-quality talents.This shows that after the implementation of the“National Pilot City of Information Benefits the People”policy,enterprises with insufficient financial resources in the past but strong talent and technology reserves are more able to seize the opportunity to realize the digital transformation of enterprises and empower their production and operation decisions.Based on the exogenous impact of“National Pilot City of Information Benefits the People”policy on economic digitalization,a quasi-natural event,this paper discusses the impact of economic digitization on enterprise investment and its mechanism of action.It not only comprehensively examines the impact of economic digitization on enterprise investment,but also greatly avoids the problem of endogeneity,thus improving the credibility of the results.In addition,it helps to open the black box of how the digitization of the economy affects enterprise investment,and provides new perspectives and evidence for people to understand how information affects economic decision-making and the efficiency of resource allocation.On the one hand,the research results of this paper will help to expand the relevant research field of how economic digitization affects the specific decision-making process of enterprises,providing reference for the development of enterprise operation in the digital era.On the other hand,it is helpful to enrich the literature and research results of the influencing factors of enterprise investment and micro-economic effect of economic digitization.In addition,this paper also provides policy guidance and reference for the government to further promote the construction of national informatization,further implement the strategy of“Information Benefits the People”,and achieve high-quality economic development.