The impact of innovation-driven policies on innovation factor mismatch: empirical evidence from national innovation-driven city pilot policies

Abstract

Factor mismatch has seriously restricted the high-quality development of China’s economy. In order to solve the problem of unreasonable factor allocation in the Chinese economy, this paper takes the innovative pilot cities implemented by the Chinese government as a quasi-natural experiment to study its impact on innovation factor mismatch. The results show that: (1) the implementation of innovation-driven policies significantly improves the mismatch of innovation factors, which still holds after a series of robustness tests and endogeneity tests; (2) For non-state-owned enterprises, non-labor-intensive enterprises and the eastern region, the implementation of innovation-driven policies can better improve the mismatch of innovation factors. Furthermore, this paper finds that the implementation of innovation-driven policies can improve the mismatch index of high-skilled R&D personnel and the capital mismatch index of basic research and applied research. (3) Innovation-driven policies improve the mismatch of innovation factors by strengthening the flow of factors and promoting the upgrading of industrial structure.