Development Zone and Corporate Innovation: Data Based on China Development Zone Audit Announcement List

Abstract

On the basis of China Development Zone Audit Announcement List 2018, this paper uses the panel data of China A-share listed companies among 1993-2018 and the quasi-natural experiment of DZ’s establishment to recognize and reveal the direct impact mechanism of DZ’s establishment on corporate innovation. This paper uses the method of propensity score matching and difference-in-differences（PSM-DID）design, which can efficiently reduce the deviation of sample selection and the influence of inherent issues. As to corporate innovation indicators, this paper selects the ratio of R&D investment to sales revenue and invention patents output. The result reveals that:（1）Industrial agglomeration with DZ’s establishment can improve corporate innovation.（2）DZ’s preferential policies and firm risk-taking are the important transmission path of DZ’s influence on corporate innovation. The channel of policy resources can improve innovation aspiration and level. The channel of risk-taking can weaken DZ’s promotive effect on corporate innovation.（3）DZ of different levels can result in different promotive effects on corporate innovation. When provincial DZ upgrades to national DZ, it can further get the incremental effect.（4）Compared with economic DZ, high-tech zone DZ has a greater promotive effect on corporate innovation.（5）DZ with leading industry as strategic emerging industry has more advantages and a stronger promotion effect on corporate innovation（6）High concentration industrial firms are more likely to obtain the innovation resources and information advantages of DZ, which is helpful to promote the improvement of the innovation level of firms. According to the conclusions of this paper, we make the following policy recommendations:（1）Policy-makers should focus on improving the governance service and industrial orientation of subnational level DZ to keep industrial policies on the basis of local predominance, not simply follow the central policy.（2）DZ should have certain objectives when it attracts firms to settle in. Except for developing local predominant industries, DZ should take firms’ industrial orientation into account.（3）In the construction of DZ, we should actively dredge the transmission mechanism, ensure the play of policy incentive effect, control the impact of DZ on the level of firm risk-taking, and avoid the adverse effect of high risk-taking on corporate innovation. This paper may have the following contributions to the related literature:（1）It enriches the literature concerning the factors influencing corporate innovation. At present, little literature focuses on the direct causal relationship between DZ and micro corporate innovation. This paper supplements and deepens the research on policy-level factors influencing corporate innovation in the respect of regional industrial policies.（2）It extends the research on DZ’s influence on microcosmic corporate behavior. At present, the discussion of DZ mainly depends on the macro data and ideas of regional influence（including regional innovation）. This paper provides new empirical evidence at firm level for the effect analysis of establishing DZ.（3）It concentrates on the orientation and extent of DZ’s influence on corporate innovation. This paper reveals the mechanism of DZ’s contribution to stimulate regional economic development and to improve corporate innovation. These discoveries strengthen the understanding of DZ’s role in promoting innovation at microcosmic level.