Crisis or Opportunity:Tariff Barriers,R&D Investment,and Innovation Quality Transformation
Promoting innovation and high-quality development is an important part of achieving the goal of Chinese-style modernization.In 2018 the United States has imposed massive tariffs on imports from China.It is worth exploring how Chinese enterprises suffering from the impact of tariff barriers will be affected in terms of R&D investment and innovation high-quality output.Based on the panel data of A-share listed manufacturing companies from 2014-2021,the difference-in-difference method is used to empirically test the impact of the tariff hike on Chinese firms'R&D expenditures and its potential mechanism.It is found that the U.S.tariff barriers to China increase the R&D investment of Chinese enterprises,which is manifested in the innovation compensation effect and the innovation exploration effect.Further research finds that short-term innovation output declines while long-term innovation output rises,and undergoes an adjustment from low-quality to high-quality innovation,suggesting that tariff barriers promote high-quality transformation of innovation.The study enriches the impact of the U.S.-China trade war on innovation from a micro perspective,and expands the incentives of tariff barriers on R&D under the framework of trade sanctions.Meanwhile,it provides empirical lessons on how firms and governments can cope with trade sanctions and effectively utilize the quality orientation of R&D investment in the context of trade protection.
NETL
NSTL
万方数据
