High-speed railway, factor flow and enterprise innovation efficiency: An empirical analysis on micro data

Abstract

Based on the data of listed companies at 285 cities prefecture level and above from 2003 to 2017, this paper empirically studies the impact of high-speed rail on enterprise innovation efficiency. By using the Difference-in-Difference (DID) method, empirical results indicate that high-speed railway can improve the innovation efficiency of listed companies. After parallel trend test of DID, the method of Propensity Score Matching and Difference-in-Difference (PSM-DID) and instrumental variable method and robustness test, the conclusion is still stable. The mediating mechanism of high-speed railway to improve enterprise innovation efficiency is to promote the flow of technical personnel and improve the knowledge spillover density of cities. Further heterogeneity analysis shows that high-speed railway has different impacts on innovation efficiency of different regions, administrative levels, cities with different population sizes, different industries and enterprises with different property rights. The policy suggestion is that we should pay attention to the positive role of high-speed rail in the formulation of enterprise innovation and development strategy.