Research On The Impact Of "The Belt And Road" Initiative On Chinese Enterprise Innovation

Innovation is the key to promote industrial upgrading and high-quality economic development,the driving force and foundation of national and ethnic development,and a necessary path for enterprise development.Since the 18th National Congress,General Secretary Xi Jinping has repeatedly emphasized the concept of innovation and development,and has formulated a series of industrial policies to support technological innovation.How to improve the technological innovation ability of enterprises is a major issue for China to achieve the transformation and upgrading of enterprises and high-quality economic development.Since General Secretary Xi Jinping proposed the "Belt and Road"initiative,this initiative has made great contributions to the development of countries along the route in the fields of economy,culture,technology exchange and trade.Domestically,"the Belt and Road" Initiative has played an important role in the transfer of excess capacity,technological innovation and the transformation of Chinese enterprises.Therefore,based on existing studies,this paper selects the data of A-share listed enterprises from 2011-2018 as a sample,and uses "the Belt and Road"initiative as a quasi-natural experiment,and applies the PSM-DID method to empirically analyze the impact of "the Belt and Road" initiative on Chinese enterprises’ innovation.The paper also examines the mechanism of "the Belt and Road" initiative on enterprise innovation from the perspective of financing constraints,and the results show that financing constraints are the mediating factor of "the Belt and Road" initiative on enterprise innovation.The results show that "the Belt and Road" initiative can improve the innovation capability of enterprises by alleviating the degree of financing constraints of enterprises.Further,this paper also conducts group regressions on the nature of enterprise property rights,whether the enterprise is located in the key provinces affected by "the Belt and Road" initiative,and whether it belongs to the new dominant industry.The results show that the initiative contributes significantly to the innovation capability of firms in terms of the number of patents obtained,and the baseline regression results are found to be robust using parallel trend tests,placebo tests,replacement propensity score matching methods and replacement of explanatory variables.Further grouping regressions reveal that "the Belt and Road" initiative is more effective in promoting innovation for state-owned enterprises,enterprises in key Belt and Road provinces,and enterprises in emerging industries.Based on the findings,this paper proposes policy recommendations from the perspectives of government and enterprises.The central government should continue to promote the "Belt and Road" initiative and promote enterprises to join the "Belt and Road" construction to build a mutually beneficial and win-win benefit community;local governments should actively respond to the call of the central government to create a favorable innovation environment for enterprises;enterprises should seize the advantages and opportunities brought by the initiative,grasp the development dynamics at home and abroad,formulate sustainable development strategies,and continuously improve their independent innovation capability in the process of "going out".The contribution and research significance of this paper are:first,using micro-enterprise data,we study the impact of the initiative on enterprise innovation,which not only enriches the study of the impact of "the Belt and Road" initiative on micro-economic agents,but also complements the study of macro-factors affecting enterprise innovation capability.This paper not only enriches the study of the impact of "the Belt and Road" initiative on microeconomic agents,but also complements the study of macro factors affecting the innovation capability of enterprises.Second,this paper is a reference for Chinese enterprises to better respond to "the Belt and Road" initiative and its construction,as well as to upgrade their own innovation,and also has some policy implications,which can help enterprises to better integrate their innovation activities with macro policies.Finally,the analysis of financing constraints as a mediating mechanism not only tests the effectiveness of financing constraints on enterprise innovation,but also enriches the research on the influence mechanism in this field.