Foreign Investment Security Review and Self-reliance and Innovation of China's High-tech Enterprises:Evidence from the FIRRMA
As enterprises are the main body of innovation,how to motivate their innovation activities has always been a hot topic of discussion in academic circles,and the external institutional environment is one of the key influencing factors.Schumpeter's theory of creative destruction holds that when the external environment deteriorates,enterprises must seek survival through internal structural innovation and improve their competitiveness via independent innovation such as new products,new technologies,and new sources of supply.Since the reform and opening-up,cross-border mergers and acquisitions have always been an important source of technology for the innovation and development of Chinese enterprises.However,with the intensification of strategic competition among major powers,some countries frequently strengthen the security review of foreign investment to safeguard national security,creating great obstacles to the overseas investment of Chinese high-tech enterprises.In particular,the introduction of the FIRRMA Act has led to the further deterioration of the external environment for Chinese enterprises,especially high-tech enterprises,hindering their innovation activities and reducing the space for Chinese high-tech enterprises to obtain innovation resources through foreign direct investment.In the face of a technical blockade caused by security review,China's high-tech enterprises can only win the global science and technology competition by pursuing self-innovation.Therefore,based on the background of strategic competition between major powers,using a difference-in-differences framework,we attempt to explore the impact and mechanism of foreign investment security review,represented by the FIRRMA Act,on the innovation and development of Chinese high-tech enterprises and use data from Chinese A-share listed companies from 2010 to 2021 to conduct the analysis.There are three main points in this study.First,the security review of foreign investment has significantly forced China's high-tech enterprises to carry out independent innovation and has encouraged high-tech enterprises to increase the number of invention patent applications and authorizations that represent"substantive innovation."Second,the analysis of mechanisms reveals that the United States'(US)restrictions on technology in China have prompted Chinese high-tech enterprises to increase independent innovation capabilities by increasing the intensity of research and development(R&D)intensity,improving R&D efficiency,and strengthening corporate coordination.Third,the reversible effect of foreign security review on the innovation ability of China's high-tech enterprises is more obvious for non-state-owned enterprises and enterprises with rich knowledge reserves.This study not only enriches the empirical research on the relationship between the external institutional environment and enterprise innovation from the perspective of US investment review in China but also provides theoretical support for Chinese high-tech enterprises to better respond to global scientific and technological competition.Compared with existing studies,this empirical study makes several contributions to the literature.First,with the help of a quasi-natural experiment and focusing on the review of core high-tech industries in the US,an external investment review is included in the institutional incentive analysis of enterprise endogenous innovation.Further,based on the existing literature on the impact of technology blockade on enterprise endogenous innovation from the fields of trade friction and export control,the literature is supplemented and improved from the perspective of investment review.Second,in this study,research on the economic effect of the policy of foreign investment security review is advanced to the micro level,and the mechanism of R&D intensity,R&D efficiency,and innovation organization form in promoting endogenous innovation of enterprises is tested.This study helps understand the resistance and risks faced by Chinese high-tech enterprises in the global innovation network from the perspective of the external institutional environment and reveals the internal logic of Chinese enterprises to break through the bottleneck dilemma through high-level scientific and technological self-reliance.
FIRRMAForeign Investment Security ReviewBlockade on New TechniquesHigh-tech EnterpriseSelf-reliance and Innovation
万方数据
维普
