中国高校科技转化改革的异质性政策效应

Heterogeneous Policy Effect of the Reform of Commercialization of Universities’Scientific and Technological Achievements in China

高校的科技成果转化在技术进步和创新型国家建设中起到重要的作用。与国外主流制度不同的是,中国高校科技人员的收益权分配在法律规定的最低分配门槛以上是可谈判的。该制度导致了科技转化改革政策效应的异质性:科技转化改革对科技人员收益权最低份额提高的政策效应取决于科技人员在改革前的实际收益权份额。本文构建了一个高校和科技人员围绕收益权分配的两阶段博弈模型,博弈的结果显示科技人员的实际收益权份额取决于自身在科技转化中的产出弹性和法律规定的最低份额。为了验证假说,本文将2015年的科技转化改革作为一次准自然实验,基于标准双重差分模型(DID)的实证结果显示:科技转化改革的政策效应具有显著的异质性,科技人员最低收益权份额的提高更多地促进了在原制度下实际收益权份额低于改革后最低份额的科技人员激励。这种异质性的政策效应对于省级和校级的加码政策同样成立。在作用机制方面,科技转化改革的影响机制来自高校发明人激励的提高和新申请专利转化周期的缩短。

The effective commercialization of universities’scientific and technological(S&T)achievements plays a crucial role in advancing the development of high-tech industries and the local economy.A key challenge for China’s shift towards high-quality economic development is converting the scientific value of university research into actual productivity.Drawing lessons from the reforms of commercialization of S&T achievements in the U.S.and European universities,this paper identifies investment in universities and incentives for S&T personnel as central issues.The focus is on property rights arrangements for these achievements.In 2015,China amended the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Promoting the Commercialization of Scientific and Technological Achievements.This amendment is the reform of commercialization of S&T achievements in China’s universities(hereinafter referred to as the reform).The reform focuses on the property rights arrangements for S&T achievements.It involves the government relinquishing its rights to universities’S&T achievements and decentralizing these rights within universities.Additionally,the minimum income share for universities’S&T personnel from these achievements is increased from 20%to 50%.This paper highlights the significant heterogeneity in the reform across China’s universities.We model the allocation of rights to benefit between universities and S&T personnel as a two-stage game,determined primarily by the S&T personnel’s influence on revenues from the commercialization of S&T achievements.When S&T personnel’s input efficiency is high enough to enable the actual share to exceed the legal minimum share,the final royalty allocation is determined endogenously by this game.Otherwise,it is fixed exogenously by law.This paper can identify and explain the heterogeneous policy effects of the reform by establishing the deterministic relationship between S&T personnel’s actual share of rights to benefit and the importance of their inputs in commercialization activities.Using data from 2,189 higher education institutions in China(2008—2017),including corresponding patent data,this study employs the reform as a quasi-natural experiment.Universities are divided into treatment and control groups based on pre-reform estimates of the output elasticity of S&T personnel.The heterogeneity in property rights mechanisms is tested using a standard difference-in-differences model.The findings reveal a 19%average increase in income from commercialization of S&T achievements for universities,with significant heterogeneity in income distribution impacts;and the treatment group experiences a policy effectiveness impact that is 50%—211%higher than the control group.The paper also investigates“policy enhancement”effects at provincial and university levels,finding that additional increases in S&T personnel’s minimum share further incentivize universities’commercialization of S&T achievements.Furthermore,by establishing a panel of university inventors and analyzing university patent data,the study demonstrates that the reform significantly promotes both the frequency of patent filings by existing inventors and the entry of new inventors,while accelerating the patent commercialization cycle without compromising technology transaction quality.The contributions of this paper can be summarized in three folds.(1)The theoretical model constructed in this paper provides a theoretical basis for explaining the heterogeneity of the policy effects of the reform.(2)This paper empirically investigates the reform using data on S&T achievements of Chinese universities at the national level and thus reveals the heterogeneity effect of institutional change.The heterogeneity of policies is strongly explained in the data through the heterogeneity of the output elasticity of S&T personnel in universities,and the mechanism inference derived is validated.Discovering and analyzing the heterogeneity effect of the reform in China is the main empirical innovation of this paper.(3)We also use inventor-level micro-patent data from China’s universities and find that the mechanism of the reform comes from the increase in incentives for S&T personnel in universities and the shortening of the commercialization cycle of newly filed patents.