Collected Essays on Finance and Economics ›› 2022, Vol. 38 ›› Issue (9): 3-13.

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Regional Digital Economy Development and Enterprise Technological Innovation: Empirical Evidence from A-share Listed Companies

PENG Shuoyi1, ZHANG Yingying2   

  1. 1.School of Economics & Management,Northwest University,Xi'an 710127,China;
    2.School of Economics and Management,Xi'an University of Posts and Telecommunications,Xi'an 710061,China
  • Received:2021-09-08 Online:2022-09-10 Published:2022-09-20

区域数字经济发展与企业技术创新——来自A股上市公司的经验证据

彭硕毅1, 张营营2   

  1. 1.西北大学经济管理学院,陕西 西安 710127;
    2.西安邮电大学经济与管理学院,陕西 西安 710061
  • 作者简介:彭硕毅(1987—),男,陕西汉中人,西北大学经济管理学院博士生;张营营(1986—),男,山东菏泽人,西安邮电大学经济与管理学院讲师。
  • 基金资助:
    教育部哲学社会科学研究重大课题攻关项目(20JZD005);陕西省社会科学基金项目(2021D035)

Abstract: Enterprise technological innovation the key link of endogenous technological progress to promote economic growth, has an important impact on promoting high-quality development of economy. In recent years, with the breakthrough of the new generation of digital technology, the digital economy is profoundly changing the social production and life style, and also has multi-dimensional impacts on the technological innovation activities of enterprises. So, does the digital economy significantly promote the innovation level of Chinese enterprises? What is its influence mechanism? Theoretically, digital economy has both direct and indirect impacts on enterprise innovation activities. The development of digital economy provides richer general technical tools for enterprise innovation activities, enabling enterprises to comprehensively improve traditional innovation activities with the help of digital simulation, digital twin, big data, cloud computing and other digital technologies. This will effectively reduce the innovation costs and the uncertainty of innovation benefits, so as to directly encourage enterprises to carry out R&D and innovation activities. The development of digital economy also enhances the connectivity of enterprise innovation networks, and provides digital cooperation platforms for heterogeneous innovation subjects. This will effectively improve the ability of enterprises to absorb external knowledge, promote the innovation synergy between enterprises and external heterogeneous innovation subjects, and then indirectly improve the level of enterprise innovation activities.
   On the basis of theoretical analysis, this paper combines China's provincial panel data from 2013 to 2019 with the data of A-share listed companies, and uses the macro-micro matching panel data set to carry out an empirical study on the innovation promoting effect of regional digital economy development at the enterprise level. Firstly, starting from the three dimensions of digital enabling industry development, digital infrastructure and the application degree of digital economy, this paper uses the global principal component analysis method to calculate the provincial digital economy development comprehensive index, and then uses the two-ways fixed effect model to test the relationship between digital economy and enterprise innovation. The results show that digital economy can not only have a significant positive impact on the growth of enterprise innovation output, but also play a positive role in improving the quality of enterprise innovation output. When the development degree of regional digital economy increases by 1%, the patent application and patent citation indicators representing the quantity and quality of enterprise innovation can increase by 0. 14% and 0. 07% respectively. The conclusion is still valid after changing key variables, changing estimation methods, changing model settings and other robustness tests, as well as the endogenous treatment of historical instrumental variables. At the same time, the innovation promoting effect of digital economy is also affected by the attribute characteristics of enterprises. In terms of property right attribute, the advantages of state-owned enterprises in operation and policy make them benefit more from the innovation promotion effect brought by digital economy. In terms of industry attributes, manufacturing enterprises that rely more on innovation activities get more digital innovation dividends. In terms of technical attributes, digital economy plays a more obvious role in improving the innovation quality of high-tech enterprises, while it plays a more significant role in catching up with the number of non-high-tech enterprises. What is more, the transmission mechanism test based on recursive equation shows that innovation synergy and technology absorption are important intermediary mechanisms for digital economy to promote enterprise technological innovation. Both of them can play an intermediary role in the impact of digital economy on the quantity and quality of enterprise innovation.
   The results of this paper have policy significance in the following two aspects. First of all, digital economy helps to improve the independent innovation ability of Chinese enterprises, and then improve the quality, efficiency and core competitiveness of economic development. Local governments at all levels should actively introduce policies to promote the construction of Digital China and improve the development level of regional digital economy. The governments should not only focus on building a regional industrial ecosystem of digital economy, and increase the depth and breadth of simultaneous interpreting of digital economy and traditional industries, but also build an industrial highland and innovation highland of digital economy around innovation chain, application chain and value chain based on regional comparative advantages, gather digital technology resources, and accelerate the expansion of digital technology application scenarios and the formation of emerging industries. Secondly, the promotion effect of digital economy innovation is affected by the characteristics of enterprises. When formulating relevant policies for digital economy development and promoting enterprise technological innovation, the governments should design different policies and measures according to the type of enterprises, and focus on the digital development of non-manufacturing enterprises and private enterprises, so as to improve the effectiveness and accuracy of policies and give full play to the innovation promotion potential of digital economy.

Key words: Digital Economy, Enterprise Technological Innovation, Innovation Synergy, Technology Absorption

摘要: 本文基于2013—2019年中国A股上市公司数据,探究区域数字经济发展对企业技术创新的影响及其机制。研究发现,数字经济发展显著推动了企业技术创新水平提升且具有创新数量和质量的双重促进效应,经一系列稳健性检验和内生性处理后结论依然成立。进一步的机制分析表明,数字经济发展能有效提高不同创新主体间的创新协同程度,增强企业的技术吸收能力,从而有利于企业技术创新水平提升。此外,数字经济发展的创新促进效应还受到企业特征的影响,在国有企业、制造业企业和非高技术企业中,数字经济对企业技术创新的提升效果更为显著。

关键词: 数字经济, 企业技术创新, 创新协同, 技术吸收

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