Research On The Mechanism Of The Import Of Intermediate Goods On Domestic Technological Innovation

Since its accession to the WTO,China’s economy has also been deeply integrated into the global division of labor system,the proportion of intermediate goods trade has increased year by year,imported intermediate goods have become an important intermediate input in domestic production,and its positive effect on domestic resource allocation and technological innovation is one of the important driving forces for China to maintain high-quality development.In recent years,under the background of the global COVID-19 epidemic and Sino-US trade frictions,China’s open environment has gradually deteriorated,the risks and uncertainties of the international environment have become important external conditions for international trade,and the risk of division of labor brought about by intermediate trade has become a new constraint.Therefore,for China,which is in a critical period of economic transformation,in addition to the positive effects of intermediate goods imports on technological innovation,the stability of this innovation environment that relies on intermediate goods imports needs to be paid attention to.In this context,this thesis explores how imported intermediates affect technological innovation,and examines the impact of external shocks on the basis of general equilibrium analysis,including the following research questions:Firstly,how do imported intermediates affect domestic technological innovation?What are the paths for imported intermediates to affect domestic technological innovation? Secondly,what are the effects of imported intermediates on domestic technological innovation? How do imported intermediates with different structural characteristics affect domestic technological innovation? Thirdly,is the innovation environment under the current open conditions sustainable? How to predict the potential risks of intermediate imports brought about by frequent emergencies in the international market?In order to answer the above questions,this paper analyzes the role path and effect of imported intermediates affecting domestic technological innovation,then discusses the potential risks of the innovation environment brought about by imported intermediates.The main research content of this article is as follows: Firstly,the second chapter of this paper summarizes the existing literature,the paper mainly from the three aspects of the related research on the import of intermediate goods,the related research on technological innovation and the correlation between imported intermediates and technological innovation,sorts out and reviews the key research results at home and abroad,and on this basis,reviews the main contributions of the existing literature and the places to be expanded,and finally leads to the research entry point of this paper.Secondly,in order to analyze the impact path of imported intermediates on domestic technological innovation,the third chapter uses global intermediate goods trade data to decompose the structure of imported intermediate products and the structure of origin in different industries,then analyzes the correlation between the structural decomposition index of imported intermediates and domestic technological innovation.First of all,through the three-yuan marginal decomposition of the growth of imported intermediate products,the trend of changes in the type,quantity and price of China’s imported intermediate products is depicted;Secondly,with the help of the characteristics of the intermediate goods trade network,the change trend of the quantity and structure of the source places on which China’s intermediate goods imports depend is described;Thirdly,through R&D investment and R&D output,the current situation and trend of technological innovation in the whole industry and high-tech industries are portrayed;Finally,an important correlation between the structure of imported intermediates and domestic technological innovation was observed through the scatter chart.Third,on the basis of correlation analysis,the fourth chapter is based on the theory of technological innovation under the open economy,innovatively constructs a general equilibrium model including imported intermediate varieties and technical complexity,discusses the role path of imported intermediates on domestic technological innovation at the theoretical level,and analyzes the cost saving effect,competition intensification effect,product diversity effect,technology spillover effect and industrial chain supplementary effect of imported intermediate products on domestic technological innovation through different action paths.Fourthly,according to the above theoretical analysis paper,the fifth chapter uses industry-level data for empirical testing.First of all,the paper uses the marginal quantity and type margin of the growth of imported intermediates to indicate the change in the quantity and type of imported intermediates,and uses the price margin of the growth of imported intermediates to indicate the substitution elasticity between imported intermediates and domestic intermediates,and discusses the impact of imported intermediates on domestic technological innovation through the quantity,price and type of imported intermediates.Because there are data limitations in measuring the technical complexity of imported intermediates at the industry level,this chapter calculates the international technology spillover of intermediate goods imports as a control variable.Then,this part introduces cross-entry items and downstream correlation indexes of imported intermediates for mechanism testing,which verifies the impact of imported intermediates on the effect of domestic technological innovation through different paths.Finally,considering the differences in technical complexity,price,etc.of the same product in different source countries,Chapter 5 further introduces three indicators of the number of import source countries,network density and Page Rank centrality in the trade network from the perspective of the structure of imported sources,and conducts an empirical analysis of the impact of the source structure of imported intermediates on technological innovation.Fifthly,in the analysis at the industry level,only the overall technical spillover level of imported intermediates is controlled,and the treatment of the important impact path of the technical complexity of imported intermediates is relatively rough.Therefore,in order to further measure the technical complexity of imported intermediates,Chapter 6 measures the technical complexity of imported intermediates at the level of "import source-industry-enterprise",and uses enterprise-level data analysis to analyze the impact of imported intermediates on domestic technological innovation through the path of technical complexity,and examines the mechanism of the impact of the company’s own technology absorption capacity on technology spillover effects.Sixthly,the risk and uncertainty of the open environment have become important external conditions for international trade,making the source of intermediate goods imports in the previous analysis uncertain,and imports are important external sources of technological innovation for Chinese enterprises.On the basis of a balanced analysis of the structure of import sources in Chapter5,Chapter 7 continues to discuss the potential risks of an innovative environment due to the structural characteristics of import sources in the international context of increasing trade risks.By defining the GDP of each trading entity as the load of the network node,according to the size of the trade volume loss and the threshold size of the load amount,a cascading failure model is constructed to simulate the specific changes that occur when the trade network where the selected intermediates are located suffers different shocks.A simulation method is provided for the analysis of the stability of the external environment of technological innovation in specific industries under the open economy.Based on the above analysis,the following research conclusions are obtained:Firstly,imported intermediate products have technological spillover effects,cost savings effects,product diversification effects,intensified competition effects and industrial chain supplement effects on domestic technological innovation through their types,quantities,prices and technical complexity.Secondly,imported intermediates as inputs directly involved in the production process,through the number of imported products to promote technological innovation.The number of types of imported intermediates has a positive adjustment effect through industry competition,that is,the more intermediate varieties imported,the more intermediate products are invested,which is conducive to the occurrence of innovation,thus weakening the inhibition of technological innovation by the intensification effect of industry competition.The higher the price of imported intermediates,the higher the cost of imported intermediates,which limits the improvement of the level of technological innovation through the reverse impact of the cost-saving effect.However,imported intermediate goods also have a positive adjustment effect on the R&D capital stock of the industry through the influence path of price,which is conducive to the improvement of the level of domestic technological innovation.The higher the correlation between imported intermediate varieties and downstream industries,the more conducive it is to the improvement of the level of domestic technological innovation.The improvement of the downstream relevance of imported intermediates means that more types of imported intermediates participate in downstream production,realizing the extension of imported intermediates in the downstream industry,which is conducive to domestic production enterprises to play a supplementary effect of the industrial chain of imported intermediates by integrating resources,thereby promoting domestic technological innovation.Thirdly,China’s Page Rank centrality has an inhibitory effect on technological innovation.The higher the Page Rank centrality is,it means that China already has a competitive advantage in this industry brought by technology or scale.The difficulty of innovation gradually increases,and the willingness of enterprises to innovate in technology decreases.However,increasing domestic competition by importing intermediate products will promote the technological innovation of some enterprises,showing a positive adjustment effect on the centrality of Page Rank.With the increase in the network density of imported intermediate products,the cost of obtaining intermediate products required for production through imports decreases,and the opportunity cost of technological innovation for enterprises increases.The resulting product diversity effect promotes domestic technological innovation.Fourthly,imported intermediate products have a technological spillover effect on technological innovation through the technical complexity of imported products,but the technological spillover effect is limited by the nature of the enterprise itself,trade methods,and the technological absorption capacity of the enterprise.The effects of productivity,capital density,firm size,firm age,etc.The above-mentioned effects of imported intermediate products on technological innovation have industry heterogeneity.Only in the material industry and labor-intensive industries,the import of intermediate products has a significant negative inhibitory effect on technological innovation.Fifthly,in the case of risk impact,the external environment of technological innovation is negatively affected by domestic technological innovation because the external environment of technological innovation is damaged,and the external environment of technological innovation of "integrated circuit parts" in China’s integrated circuit industry is relatively stable,and the risk of enterprise innovation investment is relatively large.For relevant enterprises,they can reduce risks by redistributing the distribution of import sources of enterprises and provide a stable and efficient external environment for technological innovation.Finally,based on the above conclusions,this paper puts forward the following four policy suggestions:(1)According to the characteristics of the industry,give play to the positive effect of imported intermediates;(2)Stimulating the vitality of enterprises and promote the diversification of import sources of enterprises;(3)Encouraging independent innovation and concentrate resources on core technology breakthroughs;(4)Establishing a risk early warning mechanism and pay attention to the balance between efficiency and risk.