进口竞争能否提高企业创新效率?:基于中国企业层面的分析

加入WTO后,中国在开放国内市场方面取得了很大的进步,促进了中国的进口贸易自由化。习近平主席在首届中国国际进口博览会提出要"激发进口潜力、主动扩大进口",这将进一步促进市场竞争,对企业的创新行为产生一系列影响。基于这一背景,文章在整合2005~2007年中国工业企业数据库与CEPII-BACI数据库的基础上,对中国制造业企业的创新效率进行测算,同时构造行业进口渗透率指标,系统分析和检验了进口竞争对企业创新效率的影响。实证结果表明:总体上看,进口竞争对企业创新效率有显著的负向影响。对于加工贸易企业主要通过市场竞争机制抑制了其创新效率的提高;而对于一般贸易企业,进口竞争虽然促进了其创新投入,但并未获得规模效益,表现为创新效率的下降。另外,对于高生产率企业和国际化企业,进口竞争对其创新效率的影响相对较弱;对于国有企业和高技术行业企业,进口竞争对其创新效率的抑制作用相对更大。文章结果还显示,要素市场扭曲会强化进口竞争对创新效率的负向作用。文章的结论对于进一步扩大市场开放、提高企业创新效率提供了经验证据。

Can Import Penetration Improve Enterprises’ Innovation Efficiency?: A Firm-Level Empirical Investigation of China

After joining the WTO,China has made great progress in opening up the domestic market and promoting China’s import trade liberalization.At the first China International Import Expo,President Xi Jinping proposed to"inspire import potential and actively expand imports",which will further intensify market competition and have a series of impacts on corporates’innovation behavior.In this context,based on the integration of China Industrial Enterprise Database from 2005 to 2007 and CEPII-BACI database,this paper systematically analyzes the impact of import competition on the innovation efficiency of enterprises after measuring the innovation efficiency of Chinese manufacturing enterprises and constructing import penetration rate of industries.The empirical results show that import competition has a significant negative impact on the innovation efficiency of enterprises.For processing trade enterprises,the innovation efficiency is inhibited mainly through the market competition mechanism.However,although the import competition of general trade enterprises promotes their innovation investment,it has not achieved scale benefits,which is reflected in the decline of innovation efficiency.Further,we also found that for high-productivity enterprises and international enterprises,the impact of import competition on their innovation efficiency is relatively weak;for state-owned enterprises and high-tech enterprises,import competition has a relatively greater inhibitory effect on innovation efficiency.In addition,the article results also show that factor market distortions will strengthen the negative impact of import competition on innovation efficiency.The conclusions of this paper provide empirical evidence for further expanding domestic market and improving the innovation efficiency of Chinese enterprises.