Abstract
Government subsidies (GSs) have triggered a remarkable increase in the production capacity of photovoltaic (PV) electricity in China. However, the lack of core technologies has limited PV enterprises’ competitiveness in the global market. This research investigates the impacts of R&D subsidies and non-R&D subsidies on the innovation in PV enterprises. With samples of Chinese listed PV enterprises from 2010 to 2019, this study finds R&D subsidies exert a notable positive impact on the innovation in PV enterprises. In small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and enterprises without state-owned shares, both R&D subsidies and non-R&D subsidies have positive impacts on the innovation. Considering the policy orientation, R&D subsidies granted under demand-orientation policies promote the innovation in PV enterprises. The government should increase the amount of R&D subsidies, optimize the R&D subsidies’ evaluation mechanism, and reasonably grant R&D subsidies from the demand side.
Highlights
To stimulate the generation of PV electricity, Government subsidies (GSs) were granted to PV enterprises through feed-in tariffs (FITs) (Feed-in tariff (FIT) is a policy instrument that guarantees the purchase of PV power at fixed prices) or based on the kilowatt hours of generated power after 2013
Samples and Data Sources. 70 listed PV enterprises during the period from 2010 to 2019 are chosen as research samples. e amount of GSs that PV enterprises received from the government and the data of Inno, Size, Profit, Debt, Talent, Own, and Age are accessed from China Stock Market and Accounting Research Database. e data of R&D subsidies (RDSub) are collected in the yearbook of listed PV enterprises. e prices are deflated to the 1978 value to eliminate the influence of inflation. e absolute values of variables are taken logarithm to eliminate the multiple collinearity
With samples of Chinese listed PV enterprises from 2010 to 2019, this study investigates the impact of R&D subsidies on the innovation in PV enterprises and finds some conclusions as follows
Summary
GSs have been employed to reduce costs and create demand for technological innovation in PV industry in developed countries [12]. With generous GSs, China leads regarding the scale of PV power generation Whether these subsidies have fostered innovation in PV technology is becoming a controversial issue. With a panel data of manufacturing enterprises in China, Gao et al [34] find that both central and local R&D subsidies policies are successful in promoting enterprises’ exploratory innovation. China’s PV industry may be developed with high cost and inefficient technologies and can hardly relieve the energy and environmental pressures for the low conversion rates of solar power. This study distinguishes the impacts of GSs under different policy orientations
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