| Today’s world economy is characterized by intertwined uncertainties and centurylong changes,and the international economic cycle is undergoing deep adjustments.2022 On December 13,2022,the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development(UNCTAD)released its Global Trade Update Report("the Report"),pointing out that global trade in services is projected to reach nearly $7 trillion,far higher than the preepidemic level.This is much higher than the pre-epidemic level.At the same time,Dauda et al.(2021)point out that innovation is at the heart of economic growth,that the prosperity of the present era owes much to the invention and diffusion of new technologies since the Industrial Revolution,and that our future destiny depends on innovation.Microenterprises,as market players,are the main drivers of services development in developing countries.Ultimately,higher levels of services development need to be realized through high-quality innovation and development of services firms,especially those involved in the import of intermediate services.Under the reality of the globalization of the economy,there is a lack of literature on how to expand the import of intermediate services in order to promote the innovation and development of service firms.Based on this,the paper takes "Research on the Impact of Intermediate Service Imports on the Innovation of Service Enterprises" as the theme,takes the import of intermediate services as the entry point,and explores its impact on the innovation behavior of service enterprises in depth,so as to provide a new perspective for explaining the innovation effect of the import of intermediate goods.Based on the collation of related literature and theories,this paper firstly defines the two indicators of intermediate service imports and service enterprises’ innovative behavior and portrays their factual characteristics in detail;secondly,it analyzes the mechanism of intermediate service imports affecting service enterprises’ innovative behavior.By expanding and constructing the theoretical model to analyze how intermediate service imports affect the innovative behavior of service enterprises,and on this basis to explore the conduction path of intermediate service imports affecting the innovative behavior of service enterprises;furthermore,the empirical analysis from the two aspects of innovation inputs and innovation outputs,the use of econometric models to empirically test whether the intermediate service imports affect the innovative behavior of service enterprises,and the construction of step-by-step regression model to test whether intermediate service imports mediating mechanism affecting the innovation behavior of service enterprises,as well as examining its heterogeneous performance in terms of country,industry and enterprise dimensions;furthermore,a comparative analysis with manufacturing enterprises is carried out to find out the strengths and shortcomings of service enterprises;finally,based on the above corresponding conclusions,countermeasures and suggestions are proposed to promote the development of intermediate service imports and service enterprises’ innovation.The main findings of this paper are as follows: first,the overall effect of intermediate service imports on the innovation behavior of service enterprises is tested from the enterprise level,and the empirical study supports the promotion effect of intermediate service imports on the innovation behavior of service enterprises by dealing with endogeneity,robustness test and so on.Second,the stepwise regression model test finds that intermediate service imports affect service firms’ innovation input through managerial experience,financing constraints,and business performance;intermediate service imports affect service firms’ innovation output through market competition,absorptive capacity,and productivity;third,from the results of the heterogeneity analysis,under different countries,industries,and firm dimensions,the effect of intermediate service imports on service firms’ innovation inputs and innovation output show strong heterogeneity.Finally,through the comparative analysis with manufacturing enterprises,it is found that the overall effect of manufacturing enterprises is consistent with that of service enterprises,but there are differences in the mechanism effect and heterogeneity analysis,which are mainly reflected in the following: firstly,the import of intermediate goods of service enterprises is conducive to reducing financing constraints,while the import of intermediate goods of manufacturing enterprises makes financing constraints increase;secondly,the service enterprises in the market competition effect show the Schumpeterian effect,while the manufacturing enterprises show the escape from competition effect.Thirdly,the estimation results of various sub-samples under different dimensions of service enterprises have obvious differences,while the differences of various sub-samples of manufacturing enterprises are small.The innovations of this paper are mainly in three aspects: research perspective,research object and research content:(1)From the perspective of the service industry.Literature for the study of imports of intermediate goods and enterprise innovation behavior,mainly to manufacturing enterprises as the object,less attention to service enterprises,and intermediate goods imports can enhance the level of enterprise innovation is quite controversial,has not formed a unified conclusion.Therefore,this paper takes the service industry as the research perspective,reveals the promotion effect of intermediate service imports on the innovation behavior of service enterprises,expands the depth of the research on the economic effect of intermediate goods import behavior,and also provides empirical evidence under the perspective of the service industry for the conclusion that intermediate goods imports positively affect the innovation behavior of enterprises.(2)Take service enterprises as the research object.Existing literature on the economic effects of intermediate service imports mainly focuses on the industry level,using the input-output tables provided by WIOD to project the intermediate service imports of different service industries,in order to study the impact of intermediate service imports on exports,value added and productivity.However,the improvement of a country’s(or region’s)service industry level is attributed to the innovative development at the firm level.Therefore,this paper analyzes the impact of intermediate service imports on the innovative behavior of service firms by taking service firms in developing countries,including China,provided by the World Bank,as the object of study,and provides empirical evidence at the micro-firm level for the economic effects of intermediate service imports.(3)Enrichment of existing research.Existing literature on the mechanism of intermediate goods imports affecting the innovative behavior of enterprises is relatively single.This paper not only examines the impact of intermediate service imports on the innovative behavior of service firms in general,but also explores in depth the conduction path of intermediate service imports affecting the innovative behavior of service firms.According to the mainstream of existing research,this paper divides the innovation behavior of service enterprises into innovation input and innovation output,deeply analyzes the inner path of intermediate service imports affecting the innovation input and innovation output of service enterprises,and empirically tests the theoretical hypotheses by using exhaustive micro-enterprise data.This facilitates a more concrete understanding of the link between import trade and firms’ innovative behavior,and advances the exploration of the economic effects of trade openness. |
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