“营改增”提高还是降低了服务业企业的技术创新意愿?——来自中国上市公司的实证

文章以"营改增"试点服务业企业为研究对象,利用2008-2015年中国上市公司数据,借助政策实施前后公司专利数量的变化,从创新数量和创新质量双视角经验研究了"营改增"对服务业企业技术创新意愿的影响。双重差分模型（DID）、双重差分倾向得分匹配模型（PSM-DID）以及三重差分模型（DDD）的估计结果都一致地表明,"营改增"政策显著地抑制了服务业企业的技术创新意愿;进一步地,通过作用机制检验发现,"营改增"对服务业企业技术创新意愿的抑制作用可以通过提高企业绩效实现。上述检验结果意味着,"营改增"通过提高服务业企业的经营绩效使得企业在较低的创新水平上也能够很好地生存,鉴于技术创新的高风险性,企业行为更趋于短期化,对技术进步和提高生产率缺乏足够的动力和热情。文章不仅丰富了"营改增"之于企业创新的实证研究,而且有助于理解中国企业缺乏创新动力的制度性诱因,对政府后续产业政策的制定具有重要而明晰的政策含义。

To Replace Business Tax with VAT' Increases or Reduces the Technological Innovation Willingness of Service Enterprises: An Empirical Study Based on Chinese Listed Companies

Since the tax reform in 1994, China's VAT and business tax have been separated in parallel. Manufacturing companies mainly pay VAT, and service companies mainly pay business taxes. With the development of the economy, the parallelism between the two taxes has become increasingly irrational and has caused a series of adverse consequences. To this end, with the approval of the State Council, the policy of "To Replace Business Tax with VAT" was implemented on January 1, 2012 at the pilot site in Shanghai, and was gradually extended to the entire country. "To Replace Business Tax with VAT" refers to the change of taxable items originally paid for business tax to levy of value-added tax. Value-added tax is an out-of-the-money tax. Compared with business tax, it effectively avoids the drawbacks of double taxation and has a neutral taxation feature that does not change the relative prices of goods. Therefore, the implementation of "To Replace Business Tax with VAT" can not only effectively avoid the phenomenon of double taxation, but also enable the professional division of labor in the industry. In recent years, there have been many studies on the effect of "To Replace Business Tax with VAT", but few have dealt with technological innovation. Technological progress is the engine of economic growth, and innovation is the key to technological progress. It is very important for research on "To Replace Business Tax with VAT" and technological innovation. Therefore, This paper takes ‘To Replace Business Tax with VAT’ pilot service enterprises as the research object, using the data of Chinese listed companies from 2008 to 2015, with the change of the number of patent before and after the implementation of the policy, studying the impact of ‘To Replace Business Tax with VAT’ on the willingness of technological innovation in pilot enterprises. The results of DID、PSM-DID and DDD show that the policy of ‘To Replace Business Tax with VAT’ significantly inhibits the technological innovation willingness of pilot enterprises. Further, through the test of mechanism of action, it is found that the inhibitory effect of ‘To Replace Business Tax with VAT’ on technological innovation willingness in enterprises can be realized by improving the operating performance of pilot enterprises. The above test results mean that, ‘To Replace Business Tax with VAT’ can make the enterprise survive well at a low level of innovation by improving the operating performance of the pilot enterprises. Given the uncertainty of the return on innovation, the behavior of enterprises tends to be short-term, and enterprises lack of enthusiasm and motivation for technological progress and productivity improvement. This article not only enriches the empirical research on ‘To Replace Business Tax with VAT’ and technological innovation, but also helps to understand the institutional reasons for the lack of innovative motivation for Chinese enterprises and has important and clear policy implications for the formulation of government follow-up industrial policies:First, the government should change the way of industrial policies and change direct financial intervention into indirect market guidance. Second, the government should improve the protection of intellectual property rights and create a good atmosphere for innovation. Finally, the government should create a fair market competition environment and provide guarantees for cooperation innovation among industries.