数据要素市场化能否提升城市创新能力——一个准自然实验

Can the Marketization of Data Elements Improve Urban Innovation?A Quasi-natural Experiment

基于2009-2019年中国258个地级市面板数据,采用多期双重差分模型,评估数据要素市场化对城市创新能力的影响,并对其内在影响机制与城市异质性进行拓展性分析。结果显示,数据要素市场化能够显著提高城市创新能力,且通过稳健性检验;机制检验发现,探寻城市规模与数字金融发展的平衡点、优化产业结构和集聚信息人才是数据要素市场化促进城市创新的重要渠道,且该促进作用因城市地理区位、行政等级和科教水平不同而存在显著差异,其中,数据要素市场化对东西部城市、重点城市和高科教水平城市的创新驱动效应更显著。

In the information age,data elements have become the most important means of production.With the explosive growth of global data,the market scale expansion of data elements is extremely rapid.Historical development experience has proved that every element marketization has promoted social innovation,and traditional production element marketization has different degrees of influence on innovation capability.Compared with traditional element marketization,data element marketization has some new characteristics,such as non-competitiveness,value difference,strong externality,rapid transtemporal and spatial mobility.These characteristics enable the data element marketization to influence urban innovation capability.In order to enhance urban innovation strength and promote national economic development,it is necessary to establish a data element market,promote the open sharing of government data,enhance the value of social data resources,strengthen the integration and protection of data resources,and open a new innovation-driven pattern.However,it awaits further empirical tests to find out how to allocate data elements by market and give play to their intrinsic value,and verify if the marketization of data elements can strengthen the empowerment of data elements and promote urban innovation capability.In this context,this paper takes the cities that have realized the marketization of data elements as the objects of the quasi-natural experiment and analyzes the difference in urban innovation levels before and after the establishment of a data element market from both theoretical and empirical aspects.The influence mechanism of data element marketization on urban innovation capability has been revealed as well.It provides theoretical support for the establishment and improvement of urban innovation system and the formulation and implementation of data element transaction policies from the perspective of digital economy.The following hypotheses based on the correlation analysis are proposed:(1)data element marketization improves the urban innovation capability of cities;(2)it also improves urban innovation capability through the development of digital finance;(3)data element marketization can promote urban innovation capability by promoting industrial structure optimization;(4)data element marketization can improve urban innovation capability by promoting information talent aggregation;(5)there is heterogeneity among cities in data element marketization to improve urban innovation capability.Drawing on the panel data of 258 prefecture-level cities in China from 2009 to 2019,the paper constructs a multi-phase difference-in-difference(DID)model to evaluate the impact of data element marketization on urban innovation.Its internal influencing mechanism and urban heterogeneity are also analyzed.The results show that the marketization of data elements can significantly improve the effect of urban innovation and pass the robustness test.Through the mechanism test,it is found that in order to enable data element marketization to promote urban innovation,it is essential to explore the balance point between urban scale and digital finance development,promote industrial integration and gather information talents.The driving effect of data element marketization on innovation is stronger in the eastern and western cities,key cities and cities with a high scientific education level.This paper explains the influence mechanism of data element marketization on the urban innovation effect,which is of practical significance for improving marketization allocation of elements and strengthening data elements.In summary,this paper draws on the urban panel data of the city and the establishment of a data trading platform to conduct a quasi-natural experiment.It then adopts the multi-period DID model to verify the impact of data element marketization on urban innovation capability,and explore the internal influence mechanism of data element marketization on the improvement of urban innovation capability from the perspectives of the effect balance of digital finance,the improvement of industrial integration and the aggregation of information talents.It enriches the theoretical analysis framework of the impact of data element marketization on urban innovation capability,and provides an empirical basis for related studies.It is proposed to speed up the improvement of the data trading platform and cultivate a credible data element trading market;the government should give full play to the innovation-driven role of policies in the establishment of the data element market,and employ the information and knowledge technologies in urban management.