The Substitution Effect Of Financial Flexibility On Government Subsidies In The "Post-subsidy" Era

In the report of the 20th Party Congress,the government once again emphasized the need to actively and steadily promote the carbon peak and carbon neutrality,implement the carbon peak action in a planned and step-by-step manner,and accelerate the planning and construction of a new energy system.As a low-carbon and energy-saving strategic emerging industry,new energy vehicles will definitely play a significant role in reaching the "double carbon goal" in China.Since the new energy vehicle industry was identified as a strategic emerging industry,the government has been paying great attention to the support of the new energy vehicle industry,through industry-specific government subsidies,tax breaks and other policies to help the development of the new energy vehicle industry.However,if any industry wants to obtain long-term sustainable development,it must guarantee its own strength,and the government is gradually slowing down the subsidies for the new energy vehicle industry to give the industry room for self-development.By combing through the government’s policies in recent years,it is clear that the government has slowed down the subsidies three times after formulating the policy of subsidy withdrawal,and the withdrawal time has been extended from 2020 to the end of 2022.This shows that government subsidies still play a very important role in the new energy vehicle industry,and that the government is concerned about whether the new energy vehicle industry can develop independently of industry subsidies.In view of this,this thesis aims to improve the innovation performance of the new energy vehicle industry,firstly,to prove the role of government subsidies in promoting the innovation performance of the new energy vehicle industry,and then to find the endogenous motivation within the company that can promote innovation performance,and to verify whether there is a substitution between the two,so that it can be used as a useful alternative to government subsidies in the "post-subsidy" era of the new energy vehicle industry.Through the analysis of the development history of the new energy vehicle industry and government subsidy-related policies over the years,the article selects the financial data of 114A-share new energy vehicle enterprises in China from 2014 to 2021 as the sample,chooses government subsidies and financial flexibility as the explanatory variables to achieve the research objectives of the article,and applies the data envelopment analysis method of the Super-SBM model.The empirical analysis combined with Tobit model was conducted to examine the effects of government subsidies and financial flexibility on innovation performance,and to investigate whether financial flexibility can have a substitution effect on government subsidies to promote the innovation performance of new energy vehicle enterprises.The results show that both government subsidies and financial flexibility can promote the innovation performance of new energy vehicle enterprises,and financial flexibility can play a substitution effect on government subsidies.Further study finds that:cash flexibility and debt flexibility can promote the innovation performance of the sample companies,among which debt flexibility has the strongest promotion effect;financial flexibility cannot have a substitution effect on R&D subsidies,and the substitution effect is generated between financial flexibility and non-R&D subsidies,and R&D subsidies have strong non-substitutability.Therefore,we support the government to withdraw large subsidies at an appropriate time,crack the "subsidy dependence" by "supporting excellence and strength",optimize the ratio of R&D subsidies,and continuously improve the relevant system to protect innovation;at the same time,we suggest that new energy vehicle enterprises pay attention to the substitution effect of financial flexibility on government subsidies,and actively build a reasonable financial flexibility mechanism.At the same time,it is suggested that new energy vehicle enterprises should pay attention to the substitution effect of financial flexibility for government subsidies,actively build a reasonable financial flexibility mechanism,and develop their comprehensive strength in multiple dimensions to promote innovation performance.