Enterprise Patents And OFDI

In recent years,China has become the world’s main foreign investment country.More and more Chinese enterprises expand the international market and allocate resources globally through OFDI.In 2020,China’s outbound direct investment(OFDI)ranked first in the world for the first time in terms of volume and third in stock.At present,China’s demographic dividend is gradually disappearing,and resource and environmental constraints continue to strengthen,and the traditional factor-driven model cannot be sustained.Therefore,it is necessary to explore the fimdamental driving force for Chinese enterprises to "go global".Innovation is the only way for a country’s productivity to grow in the long run.Schumpeter’s innovation theory reveals the source of modern economic growth.The 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China clearly proposed "accelerating the construction of an innovation-oriented country",aiming to improve the ability of scientific and technological innovation,support a modern country with strong science and technology,and shift to an innovation-driven model.As an important embodiment of a country’s innovation activities at macro and micro levels,patents reflect the direct results of R&D and innovation activities.At the same time,patent is an important carrier of knowledge,which reflects the innovation ability of market competition subjects,and it is an important tool for an enterprise’s products to obtain market recognition and maintain long-term competitive advantages.Chinese governments at all levels,especially local governments,have issued supportive policies to encourage patent activities of enterprises.This paper aims to explore the impact of patent quality on OFDI and its mechanism from the perspective of patent,which is not only a theoretical issue that needs to be discussed in depth in the academic community,but also can provide empirical evidence for governments at all levels to formulate patent support policies.This paper intends to study a series of issues about the impact of patent quality on OFDI of Chinese enterprises and its mechanism,focusing on theoretical analysis and empirical test.In terms of theoretical analysis,the main channel of patent quality affecting OFDI is "productivity effect".Patent quality promotes the development of OFDI by improving the total factor productivity of enterprises.In the aspect of empirical test,the influence of patent quality on OFDI of enterprises is investigated from multiple dimensions.Firstly,it explores the influence of patent quality on the investment decision of enterprises(whether to invest or not,that is,the investment probability).Further,when enterprises decide to carry out OFDI activities,they will be faced with the choice of investment mode and investment location.Finally,it is necessary to investigate the investment performance of enterprises after investment activities.Therefore,this paper intends to comprehensively explore the effect of patent quality on OFDI from four aspects:OFDI probability,investment mode choice,investment location choice and investment performance.By collecting and calculating the patent quality data,matching the CSMAR database of listed companies and the"Directory of Chinese Enterprises’ Outbound Investment"provided by the Ministry of Commerce,PRC,This paper studies patent quality systematically and deeply on Chinese enterprises’ outbound direct investment and its mechanism.In terms of the impact of patent quality on the probability of OFDI,the research conclusion shows that different types of patent quality can improve the probability of OFDI.At the same time,after solving the endogeneity problem and using different patent quality measurement index methods,the core conclusion is still robust.Through heterogeneity test,it is found that patent quality improves the OFDI probability of state-owned enterprises and non-state-owned enterprises,and further analysis found that compared with state-owned enterprises,patent quality plays a greater role in improving the OFDI probability of non-state-owned enterprises.From the perspective of industry attributes,patent quality plays a more obvious role in improving the OFDI probability of technology-intensive enterprises.The mechanism test shows that patent quality affects the probability of OFDI through the"productivity effect",that is,patent quality improves the probability of OFDI by improving productivity.In terms of the impact of patent quality on enterprises’ choice of OFDI mode,this paper empirically tests the overall and differential effects of different types of patent quality on enterprises’ choice of OFDI mode by distinguishing the differences of enterprise ownership nature and different technology intensity.It provides empirical evidence for a deeper understanding of the impact of patent quality on the choice pattern of OFDI.It is found that no matter what type of patent quality is improved,enterprises are more inclined to choose cross-border M&A mode for OFDI.After considering the endogeneity problem and changing the patent quality measurement index method,the core conclusion is still robust.The heterogeneity results show that,compared with state-owned enterprises,patent quality has a greater impact on the OFDI mode choice of non-state-owned enterprises.In addition,the impact of patent quality on the choice of OFDI mode is more significant in technology-intensive enterprises,which are more likely to choose cross-border M&A when the patent quality is improved.Further mechanism tests show that "productivity effect" is an important channel through which patent quality affects the choice pattern of OFDI.In terms of the impact of patent quality on the location choice of OFDI,this paper empirically tests the impact of different types of patent quality on the location choice of OFDI.The study finds that:The improvement of different types of patent quality will significantly increase the number of host countries for OFDI location choice,that is,it will significantly promote the expansion margin of OFDI.Moreover,the core conclusion is still robust after considering the endogeneity problem and changing the patent quality measurement index method.Further mechanism tests show that "productivity effect" is an important channel through which patent quality affects the location choice of OFDI.In terms of the impact of patent quality on OFDI performance of enterprises,this paper empirically tests the overall and differential effects of different types of patent quality on OFDI performance of enterprises by distinguishing the differences in firm size,firm development stage and firm ownership nature.It is found that the investment performance of enterprises increases significantly with the improvement of the quality of different types of patents,and the core conclusion is still robust after considering the endogeneity problem and changing the patent quality measurement index method.Through further heterogeneity test,it is found that the impact of patent quality on OFDI performance of large enterprises is more significant than that of small enterprises.From the perspective of enterprise development stage,in terms of the quality of invention patent application and the quality of invention patent,the patent quality has a more significant promoting effect on enterprise performance in the mature stage.In terms of quality of utility model patent application and quality of utility model patent acquisition,the patent improvement effect of growth stage enterprises is better than that of mature stage enterprises.Finally,from the perspective of enterprise ownership type,whether it is the quality of invention patent application and invention patent acquisition,or the quality of utility model patent application and utility model patent acquisition,the investment performance of non-state-owned enterprises has a more significant improvement.Further mechanism tests show that"productivity effect" is an important channel through which patent quality affects OFDI performance.The results of this paper show that only by effectively improving the quality of patents,can we effectively play the role of patent quality in promoting the OFDI of enterprises,so as to enhance the core competitiveness of enterprises and promote enterprises to "go global" with high quality.