| Since the reform and opening up,China has made remarkable achievements in economic construction and scientific and technological development.Among them,the establishment and development of National High-tech Industry Development Zones is undoubtedly a highlight,which is a major strategic plan made by the Party Central Committee and the State Council to develop high-tech industries,adjust industrial structure,promote the transformation of traditional industries and enhance international competitiveness.In August 1988,China’s national high-tech industrialization development plan(the Torch Plan)was implemented,and the establishment of High-tech Industrial Development Zones was clearly included in the Torch Plan.With the accelerated evolution of a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation,it is increasingly eager for the country to change the development mode,optimize the economic structure,transform the growth drivers and open up new horizons of high-quality development.In this context,the National High-tech Zones,as an important strategic platform for cultivating high-tech industries and achieving high-quality economic development,has entered a new stage of “innovation-driven high-quality development”.At the same time,the report to the 20 th National Congress of the Communist Party of China clearly points out that we should focus on improving total factor productivity,and regard it as one of the major tasks of promoting high-quality development.However,in the operation and exploration of China’s economy,limited by the policy environment,infrastructure construction,market competition mechanism and other factors,enterprises’ innovation and development ability are weak,and the input combination of capital-labor and other factors also needs to be optimized,which leads to the low total factor productivity of enterprises.How to mobilize enterprises’ enthusiasm and quickly improve their total factor productivity is of great significance to the smooth implementation of China’s innovation-driven strategy and even the high-quality development of economy.Under this background,based on the combined data of China customs database,industrial enterprise database and “China Development Zones Audit and Announcement Catalogue(2018 Edition)” from 2006 to 2014,with 62 National High-tech Zones as research objects,this paper systematically investigates the influence of the establishment of National High-tech Zones on the total factor productivity of export enterprises by the method of difference-in-differences.The results are as follow.(1)National High-tech Zones have a positive impact on total factor productivity of export enterprises in the zones.Considering that there may be endogeneity problems caused by sample selection and reverse causation in empirical analysis,this paper comprehensively uses PSM+DID,Heckman two-step method and instrumental variable method to eliminate its influence on the estimated results as far as possible.At the same time,robustness tests are conducted from the perspectives of parallel trend test,placebo test,adjusting the measurement method of enterprise total factor productivity,changing data samples,re-identifying National High-tech Zones at the city level,re-identifying National High-tech Zones by enterprise postal code,and considering the influence of "the Belt and Road Initiative" in the same period.The conclusion is still robust after a series of robustness analysis.(2)The positive productivity effects of National High-tech Zones are heterogeneous in terms of enterprise ownership,external environment(Whether the high-tech zone is located in coastal cities,provincial capitals or municipalities directly under the central government,and local government efficiency)and high-tech zones’ establishment time.Moreover,it is found that the stimulate effect of National High-tech Zones on export enterprise productivity is significantly higher than that of other types of economic functional zones,which supports the strategic positioning of National High-tech Zones as “innovation-driven development demonstration zones " and" high-quality development pilot zones”.(3)Mechanism investigation shows that National High-tech Zones promotes the total factor productivity of export enterprises through strongly releasing preferential policies,strengthening the “technology spillover effect” of imported intermediate products,enhancing enterprise’s innovation ability and attracting the concentration of highly skilled talents.(4)This paper makes an extended study on the policy effect of National High-tech Zones,and further investigates the influence of high-tech zones on the productivity changes of different industries based on the dynamic decomposition of the growth rate of industrial productivity.The research shows that National High-tech Zones promote the overall productivity of the industry mainly by stimulating the productivity improvement of enterprises and expanding the market share of high-productivity enterprises;the policy of high-tech zones do not significantly stimulate high-productivity enterprises to enter high-tech zones,and nor do they make low-productivity enterprises exit from the zones,which reduces the efficiency of industry resource allocation to some extent.To a large extent,the above research conclusions have enriched and expanded the literature research on the effects of national functional zone establishment policies on the development and innovation of micro enterprises and the high-quality development of regional economy.They not only provide a realistic basis for objectively evaluating the economic effects of the policies implementation of National High-tech Zones,but also provide new evidence and policy enlightenment for promoting the improvement of output performance and R&D innovation upgrading of China’s enterprises,which are of great importance for the further deepening adjustment of the policies of high-tech zones and the improvement of enterprises’ total factor productivity. |
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