经济政策不确定性与家族企业创新——融资约束及政府补助视角

家族企业作为社会发展的主要参与者，在促进经济增长方面发挥着不可替代的作用。家族企业若想实现长期发展，必然依靠创新。然而，我国家族企业普遍面临创新投入不足、创新产出效率低下等问题。基于2010—2018年中国上市家族企业数据，分析经济政策不确定性对于家族企业创新是否存在激励作用。结果发现，经济政策不确定性提高，会对家族企业创新研发活动投入与产出产生正向激励作用，促进家族企业创新。从融资约束与政府补助视角，分析两者在上述正向激励作用中的调节作用。结果表明，对于融资约束小以及受到政府补助的家族企业而言，其受到经济政策不确定性的正向激励作用更显著，有助于其开展创新研发活动。结论不仅验证了经济政策不确定性对于家族企业创新的激励作用，还揭示了融资约束以及政府补助的调节作用，可为政府制定相应补助政策，构建完善的金融市场提供理论支持和经验证据。

Economic Policy Uncertainty and Family Business Innovation:from the Perspective of Financing Constraints and Government Subsidies

The Central Economic Work Conference in 2019 pointed out that China's development is still and will be in an important period of strategic opportunities for a long time. We should closely follow the new connotations of important strategic opportunities, accelerate the optimization and upgrading of economic structure, enhance scientific and technological innovation capabilities to speed up the promotion of high-quality economic development. As the main carrier of innovation, family businesses play an important role in this process. According to the "2018 Global Family Business Survey-China Report" released by PricewaterhouseCoopers, 77% of mainland business family business leaders believe that the innovation requiring to stay ahead has become their main challenge. The authors believe that this challenge comes from the economic environment (58%) and the lack of specialization of enterprises (52%). At present, China's economic operation is stable and changes amidst the changes, and the economy is facing downward pressure. In order to ensure the stable and rapid development of the economy, various reform measures have been introduced one after another to keep the economy operating within a reasonable range. However, while the government is actively promoting various reform measures, it is also likely to increase the uncertainty of economic policies, and the complex and volatile world situation has exacerbated external risks. In contrast, innovative R&D activities have high funding requirements and a long R&D cycle. With the increase in economic policy uncertainty, it is quite possible for companies to change their original innovative R&D strategies.#br#As a major participant in social development, family businesses play an irreplaceable role in promoting economic growth. If a family business wants to achieve long-term development, it must rely on innovation as its core driving force. However, family businesses in China generally face the problems of insufficient investment in innovation and low efficiency in innovation output. It is an issue worth of research if changes in economic policy uncertainty will change the investment strategy of family companies and affect the company's investment in innovation.#br#This paper studies the impact of economic policy uncertainty on the technological innovation activities of family companies, and selects the R&D investment and patent applications of A-share listed family companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets from 2010 to 2018 as the research object. The basic information and financial data of the family business involved in the empirical process, as well as the control variables of the industry, including business size, cash flow ratio, fixed asset ratio, return on assets, Tobin’s Q value, main business income growth rate, and the company’s two rights Information such as divergence rate, industry profit information, market concentration and the degree of marketization in the region are derived from the CSMAR database and the WIND database. The patent data to measure the innovation performance of enterprises comes from the patent inquiry system of the State Intellectual Property Office. The variable to measure the uncertainty of economic policy uses the Economic Policy Uncertainty Index (Epu Index) jointly issued by Stanford University and the University of Chicago. In order to ensure the validity of the data, this article processes the samples as follows before the empirical study: (1) eliminate family businesses that have been specially processed by ST, *ST, etc. during the observation period; (2) eliminate financial and insurance companies; (3)exclude family businesses that have serious data missing during the sample observation period. In the empirical study, the sample size of the design R&D intensity is 14 243, and the regression sample involving the number of patent applications is 3 003. #br#The study finds that the increase in economic policy uncertainty has a positive incentive effect on the input and output stages of family business innovation and R&D activities, and promotes family business innovation. Subsequently, from the perspective of financing constraints and government subsidies, this article analyzes the moderating role of the two in this positive incentive role. The results show that for family businesses with small financing constraints and government subsidies, the positive incentives of economic policy uncertainty are stronger, and it is more beneficial for family businesses to carry out innovative R&D activities. The conclusions of this paper not only verify the incentive effect of economic policy uncertainty on family business innovation, but also ascertain the regulatory role of financing constraints and government subsidies, which provides theoretical support and empirical evidence for the government to formulate corresponding subsidy policies and establish a sound financial market.#br#