Can Fiscal Subsidies and Tax Incentives Stimulate High-quality Innovation in Strategic Emerging Industries?

Abstract

This paper empirically examines the incentive effects of fiscal subsidies and tax incentives on the innovation activities of strategic emerging enterprises from the perspective of enterprise life cycle using data of listed companies in strategic emerging industries in China from 2010 to 2019. The results show that: in general, both fiscal subsidies and tax incentives promote the improvement of total factor productivity of strategic emerging enterprises; in terms of different stages of enterprise development, the incentive effects of fiscal subsidies and tax incentives on the innovation activities of strategic emerging enterprises in the growth stage are more obvious, but for enterprises in the maturity and decline stages, the incentive effects are not obvious; from the perspective of the types of fiscal subsidies and tax incentive policies, tax incentive policies are more conducive to the innovation activities of strategic emerging enterprises; the further sub-sample study reveals that fiscal subsidies and tax incentives significantly stimulate the innovation activities of non-state enterprises, manufacturing enterprises and enterprises in the eastern region in the growth stage; from the mechanism test, strategic emerging enterprises that receive fiscal subsidies and tax incentives have a more significant increase in R&D expenditure, which in turn promotes the innovation activities of enterprises. After replacing the explained variable, replacing the core explanatory variables and considering the endogeneity issue, the findings of this paper are still robust. The findings of this paper help to optimise the allocation of fiscal subsidy and tax incentive funds and improve the efficiency of the use of fiscal subsidy and tax incentive funds.