The expansion of global value chains(GVCs)has fundamentally altered the way firms engage in innova-tion.Instead of developing proprietary technologies,many firms now rely on importing key technologies and compo-nents,which reduces the need for extensive R&D.While this may enhance short-term efficiency,it increases firms'vul-nerability to external shocks,especially those resulting from protectionist trade policies.Anti-dumping measures,as a common non-tariff barrier,disrupt the flow of critical inputs by raising the cost of imports or outright restricting access to foreign technologies.For countries heavily embedded in GVCs,these policies can have far-reaching consequences,par ticularly for firms that are heavily reliant on imported technologies for innovation.As GVCs deepen,the direct purchase of core components from abroad,instead of conducting independent R&D,has become increasingly common across countries.This shift implies that a country's innovation activities are more sus-ceptible to the trade policies of other countries.Non-tariff barriers,such as anti-dumping measures,which are frequently employed in modern trade policy,have increasingly significant impacts on foreign innovation activities.Unfortunately,ex-isting research on the relationship between trade barriers and innovation has largely overlooked the technological heteroge-neity among trade participants.Addressing this gap in literature is crucial for developing a better understanding of how trade policies shape global in-novation dynamics.Policymakers should consider the technological characteristics of firms when designing trade policies to ensure that protectionist measures do not unintentionally hinder innovation,particularly in countries and industries that are still catching up to the global technology frontier.This paper investigates the relationship between trade barriers and enterprise innovation within the framework of technological disparities among trade entities.This paper finds that trade barriers increase patent applications by techno-logically advanced firms but diminish patent applications by technologically lagging firms.A theoretical model explains how trade barriers lead to import diversion from the target country to third countries,in-tensifying market competition.Technologically advanced firms can leverage innovation to enhance their technological ad-vantages and competitiveness,thereby improving their innovation capacity.In contrast,firms with weaker technological foundations are less likely to establish competitive advantages through innovation and more likely to reallocate resources away from innovation in response to heightened competition.In empirical analyses,this paper conducts robustness checks on the baseline regression results and empirically identi-fies the theoretical mechanisms.This paper utilizes India's anti-dumping cases and international production fragmentation between South Korea and Japan as instrumental variables for anti-dumping measures and firm-level technological dis-tance,respectively.Furthermore,this paper addresses the potential issue of the technological distance indicator being overly correlated with the U.S.industry technology levels by excluding U.S.anti-dumping cases and replacing the bench-mark country for global frontier technology.This paper also controls the effects of other concurrent trade policies.The ro-bustness tests consistently support the validity of the baseline results.Building on the confirmed robustness of the primary findings,this paper further investigates trade diversion effects,confirming that anti-dumping measures intensify competition in destination markets.Then,this paper identifies firms'sen-sitivity to market competition using operational similarity and demonstrates that market competition serves as a critical channel through which trade barriers impact firm innovation.Through the heterogeneity analysis using downstreamness and product complexity as indicators,this paper finds that downstream firms and those with lower product complexity ex-hibit stronger innovation responses to anti-dumping measures,as they are more sensitive to market competition.Our findings hold important implications for reassessing the impact of trade barriers on firm innovation.Firstly,for technologically lagging firms,narrowing the technology gap becomes their primary task.This requires focusing on talent recruitment and development,building effective incentive mechanisms to attract top talents,and enhancing inter-firm co-operation to form technological alliances that can collaboratively improve technological capabilities and overcome barriers.Secondly,for technologically advanced firms,an over-reliance on non-inventive patent innovations to seek policy support under trade barriers may undermine their independent R&D capabilities.These firms should concentrate on basic research and frontier technology development,establishing comprehensive R&D systems and incentive mechanisms to foster inter-nal innovation.Finally,governments should strengthen policy support for firms,particularly those with lower technologi-cal levels,by providing technical training and R&D funding to enhance their innovation capabilities.Additionally,govern-ments should guide and support technologically advanced firms by raising patent granting standards and increasing recogni-tion and rewards for high-quality innovation.
万方数据
维普
