Incentive effects and differences of venture capital and government subsidies on technological innovation of advanced material enterprises

Abstract

In recent years, with the application of resources gradually extended to high- tech industry and strategic emerging industry, the technological innovation of downstream material end has become the strategic focus of reconstructing the advantages of China’s resource industry. Based on the panel data of China’s advanced material enterprises from 2008 to 2017, this study used the panel vector autoregressions (PVAR) model to comprehensively explore the dynamic incentive effects of venture capital and government subsidies on technological innovation of China’s advanced material enterprises, and comparatively analyzed the differences in incentive effects between the two tools from the perspective of technology life cycle. The results show that although both venture capital and government subsidies can improve the technological innovation of advanced material enterprises, the incentive effect of venture capital is short term, while the long-term incentive effect of government subsidies is obvious. For enterprises in the introduction period, the incentive effect of venture capital on their technological innovation is small, and government subsidies can make up for the lack of market capital allocation. For enterprises in the growth period, the incentive effect of venture capital on their technological innovation is stronger than that of government subsidies in the long run. For enterprises in the mature period, the incentive effect of government subsidies is limited, and venture capital can play a leading role in promoting the technological innovation of such enterprises. Therefore, in order to promote the technological innovation of advanced material enterprises, the government should introduce a classified subsidy mechanism, focusing on enterprises in the introduction period, and guiding venture capital investment in enterprises in the growth and mature periods.