Government R&D subsidies and enterprise R&D activities: theory and evidence

Abstract

Under the control of multi-dimensional factors such as industry and enterprise characteristics, this paper examines the impact of government R&D subsidies on enterprise R&D activities, both theoretically and empirically. Theoretically, on the basis of Symeonidis model, this paper establishes a three-stage dynamic game model by introducing the government R&D subsidy, in order to expand the existing theory. Taking the data of the listed enterprises in China as the research sample, the Spatial Quantile Autoregressive Regression method, which has the ability to examine both spatial effect and quantile effect, is used to test the theoretical results. It is found that R&D subsidies play a significant positive role in stimulating the R&D activities of enterprises, and the incentive effect of subsidies is more obvious with the increase of R&D investment and R&D efficiency. Furthermore, the spillover effect can improve R&D efficiency, and this effect will be gradually strengthened with the increase of quantile.