Fiscal Decentralization,Government Subsidies And Regional Innovation Performance

Since the reform and opening up in 1978,China's economic development has achieved rapid growth for more than 40 years.It has become the second largest economy in the world,and its per capita GDP has been continuously improved.The rapid growth of our country is inseparable from the accumulation of capital scale and the intensive input of labor force.However,since the end of the 20 th century,the extensive development mode relying on factor investment has gradually changed into the intensive growth mode relying more on technological progress and efficiency improvement.How to obtain advanced technology and turn to intensive growth,an effective way is to use the technology spillover of FDI.However,with the narrowing of technology gap between China and developed countries,the space to acquire advanced technology relying on the technology spillover effect of international capital has been narrowed,and the demand for independent innovation has become increasingly urgent.How to improve the ability of independent innovation,first of all,we need to identify the key factors that affect innovation activities.Looking back on the course of China's economic development,the reform of fiscal decentralization will undoubtedly have an important impact on economic development and also on innovation activities.Fiscal decentralization gives the local government certain economic autonomy,which directly affects the local government's policy choice and economic performance of the development area.Therefore,in the context of China's economic development entering the new normal,it is of great significance to continue to give full play to the institutional advantages of fiscal decentralization in order to promote the high-quality development that relies more on independent innovation.Therefore,whether fiscal decentralization can encourage local governments to change the economic development mode of their jurisdiction,pay more attention to innovation driven development mode,and what means local governments use to support regional innovation activities and achieve good innovation performance in the government led economy,has become a research topic worthy of discussion.Based on the theory of fiscal decentralization,resourcebased theory and regional innovation system theory,this study investigates the relationship between fiscal decentralization and regional innovation performance and its impact mechanism,mainly around the following logic to carry out theoretical analysis and empirical test,and get the corresponding conclusion.First of all,due to the inconsistency of regional innovation performance in concept definition,measurement indicators,research scope,etc.,this study clarifies the relationship between different concepts and examines the dynamic changes of regional innovation performance by building a conceptual model of regional innovation performance.On this basis,the paper analyzes the current situation of regional innovation performance in China.Specifically,according to the relationship and law of "quantity quality",regional innovation performance can be divided into two types: extensive margin and intensive margin.Among them,extensive margin is the definition of regional innovation performance from the perspective of innovation "quantity",including scientific research innovation performance pursuing knowledge accumulation and product innovation performance reflecting innovation commercialization degree,reflecting innovation scale stock;intensive margin is the definition of regional innovation performance from the perspective of innovation "quality",including the coupling of scientific research innovation and product innovation interaction Innovation performance and regional innovation efficiency,which measures the input-output ratio,can effectively reflect the marginal incremental improvement of innovation.Based on this conceptual model,this study empirically analyzes the current situation of regional innovation performance in China,and finds that: in recent years,China has achieved good extensive marginal innovation performance,showing an exponential growth trend,which is at a high level as a whole;there is heterogeneity in intensive marginal innovation performance,and there is a large improvement space in some parts,among which,coupling innovation performance as a whole is in high-quality coupling In addition,there is some room for improvement;regional scientific research and innovation efficiency is high,while product innovation efficiency needs to be further improved.Secondly,based on the resource-based theory,this study regards the financial autonomy given by the central government to the local government as a kind of valuable,scarce,incompletely imitated and organizational available resources for regional innovation,and tests the relationship between financial decentralization and extensive marginal innovation performance,as well as the regulatory role of institutional environment.The empirical results show that: income decentralization or expenditure decentralization has a positive effect on the performance of extensive marginal scientific research innovation and product innovation;income decentralization has no binding effect on the relationship between expenditure decentralization and extensive marginal innovation performance,that is,it does not support the hypothesis of "pay as you receive";the higher the degree of Regional Marketization,the weaker the positive effect of fiscal decentralization on regional scientific research innovation performance,and It has a positive effect on regional product innovation performance,and fiscal decentralization is more conducive to the promotion of extensive marginal innovation performance in the central and western regions.Thirdly,considering that the interaction between scientific research innovation and product innovation will produce marginal increment of regional innovation performance.Therefore,based on the panel fixed effect model and the panel quantile regression model,this study studies the fiscal decentralization,the average impact of Government R&D subsidies on regional coupling innovation performance,the heterogeneity impact and the intermediary effect of Government R&D subsidies.The results show that: fiscal decentralization or government R&D subsidies have a positive effect on regional coupling innovation performance,but for different regions with different levels of industry university research interaction,the effects of fiscal decentralization or government R&D subsidies are heterogeneous.Compared with the highly interactive regions,fiscal decentralization has a greater impact on the regions with low innovation coupling;however,the impact of Government R&D subsidies on the regional coupling innovation performance exists in the "optimal interval" of the degree of industry university research interaction,that is,the impact on the regions with medium degree of industry university research interaction is significantly positive.At the same time,government R&D subsidies play a part of intermediary role in the relationship between fiscal decentralization and regional coupling innovation performance.In addition,there are regional and stage differences in the impact of the two on regional coupling innovation performance.Finally,from the perspective of input-output,the improvement of regional innovation efficiency is conducive to the generation of regional innovation marginal increment.Therefore,this study empirically analyzes the relationship between fiscal decentralization and regional innovation efficiency,as well as the intermediary role of horizontal tax competition.The results show that: under the current fiscal decentralization system in China,fiscal decentralization and regional innovation efficiency have an inverted U-shaped curve relationship,that is,the influence of fiscal decentralization on regional innovation efficiency is "too much" effect;fiscal decentralization has a Ushaped curve effect on horizontal tax competition;horizontal tax competition has a negative impact on regional scientific research innovation efficiency,but on regional product innovation Efficiency has a positive impact;horizontal tax competition plays an intermediary effect in the relationship between fiscal decentralization and regional research and innovation efficiency,while it plays a masking effect in the relationship between fiscal decentralization and regional product innovation efficiency.In terms of regions,fiscal decentralization has no significant impact on the innovation efficiency of the eastern region;it has a positive impact on the scientific research innovation efficiency of the central region,and the product innovation efficiency has an inverted Ushaped impact;and it has an inverted U-shaped impact on the innovation efficiency of the western region.Considering the Promotion Tournament mechanism of Chinese officials,the horizontal tax competition has a stronger inhibitory effect on the efficiency of regional scientific research and innovation in the year of turnover cycle.This study demonstrates the relationship between fiscal decentralization and regional innovation performance,as well as the intermediary role of government subsidies in the relationship between them,and empirically tests the two types of regional innovation performance: extensive margin and intensive margin.The main innovations of this study are as follows:(1)Based on the resource-based theory,this paper re understands the important resource value of the economic autonomy given by fiscal decentralization to local governments in regional innovation activities,and extends the research boundary of resource-based theory to a certain extent through the discussion of public sector innovation behavior.(2)Building the conceptual model of regional innovation performance is conducive to deepening the research on regional innovation The recognition of regional innovation performance also provides some enlightenment for the realization of high-quality development of China's economy.(3)Fiscal decentralization has both positive and negative effects.A comprehensive study of the role of fiscal decentralization in regional innovation is conducive to the exploration of the optimal fiscal decentralization model between the central and local governments,as well as a clear understanding of the role of local governments in the regional innovation system,so as to promote the development of China's economy The theory of fiscal decentralization and the theory of regional innovation system are useful complements.