Research On Tax Competition Mechanism To Promote Innovative Output Of High-tech Industry

Since the innovation-driven development strategy was put forward in 2013,China’s emphasis on technological innovation has been increasing year by year,and the assessment of officials’ performance has gradually changed from GDP orientation to regional technological innovation assessment.Therefore,in order to promote the improvement of local regional innovation performance,local governments may take a series of measures to compete for innovation resources.Tax competition,as one of the most important ways of inter-governmental competition,will certainly play an important role in it.The tax competition among local governments is divided into benign tax competition and malignant tax competition.If the tax competition among local governments is benign tax competition,it may reduce the effective tax rate of innovative enterprises,and thus enable enterprises to have more funds for R&D investment.However,if the tax competition between governments is vicious tax competition,the competitive strategy of "race to the bottom" is generally adopted.Excessive tax competition will lead to the reduction of local fiscal revenue,and then affect the provision of local basic services,destroy the innovation environment,and inhibit the innovation output of enterprises.As the industry with the most outstanding innovation achievements and the highest degree of innovation,high-tech industry’s stable innovation output depends on the continuous investment of enterprises and also depends on the provision of a favorable regional innovation environment.However,there is a lack of relevant research on the impact of tax competition on the innovation output of high-tech industry.Therefore,this paper intends to explore the impact of tax competition on the innovation output of high-tech industry since the innovation-driven development strategy was put forward.Whether tax competition plays a positive role in promoting the output of innovation in high-tech industry or a negative role in inhibiting the output of innovation in high-tech industry,based on this,policy suggestions are put forward to promote the output of innovation in high-tech industry.This paper studies the effect of tax competition on high-tech industry innovation output by empirical test.Firstly,based on the study of previous literatures,the method of measuring tax competition and high-tech industry innovation output is selected,and the current situation of both is analyzed by measuring the intensity of tax competition and high-tech industry innovation output.Secondly,based on the panel data of 31 provinces and cities from 2013 to 2020,the mediating effect model,moderating effect model and spatial Dubin model are adopted to empirically analyze the mediating effect,moderating effect and spatial effect of tax competition on the innovation output of high-tech industries.The heterogeneity of the effect of tax competition on innovation output in high-tech industries is analyzed by empirical test.Finally,according to the research conclusions,corresponding policy suggestions are put forward to better promote the output of high-tech industry innovation.The main conclusions of this paper are as follows:(1)Generally speaking,tax competition will inhibit innovation output of high-tech industries,and the inhibitory effect of tax competition on innovation output of high-tech industries is mainly through local fiscal expenditure on science and technology,that is,tax competition will inhibit local fiscal expenditure on science and technology,and then inhibit innovation output of high-tech industries.Moreover,local financial expenditure on science and technology plays a complete intermediary effect in tax competition inhibiting high-tech industry innovation output.Industry nationalization and market competition intensity both weaken the inhibiting effect of tax competition on high-tech industry innovation output.(2)From the perspective of regional heterogeneity,there are four economic regions:eastern,central,western and Northeast.Tax competition has the most significant inhibitory effect on high-tech industry innovation output in eastern region,followed by tax competition in central region,and has no significant inhibitory effect on high-tech industry innovation output in western and northeast China.In addition,from the perspective of regional segmentation,only the tax competition in the eastern region will inhibit the innovation output of high-tech industry by inhibiting the local fiscal expenditure on science and technology,and the local fiscal expenditure on science and technology in the eastern region has a complete intermediary effect on the influence of tax competition on the innovation output of high-tech industry.The mediating effect of local fiscal expenditure on science and technology on the influence of tax competition on the innovation output of high-tech industries in central China is not significant.In terms of the regional moderating effect,industry nationalization and market competition intensity in eastern China will weaken the inhibitory effect of tax competition on the innovation output of high-tech industries.In the central region,only industry nationalization will strengthen the inhibitory effect of tax competition on high-tech industry innovation output,and the moderating effect of market competition intensity on the influence of tax competition on high-tech industry innovation output is not significant.(3)From the research results of spatial spillover effect,the total tax competition has a negative spatial spillover effect on high-tech industry innovation output,and the indirect spillover effect is larger than the direct spillover effect,which indicates that the total tax competition has a stronger negative effect on high-tech industry innovation output in neighboring areas.In terms of VAT tax competition,VAT tax competition has a negative spatial spillover effect on high-tech industry innovation output,and its indirect spillover effect is larger than the direct spillover effect,which indicates that VAT tax competition has a stronger negative effect on high-tech industry innovation output in neighboring regions.In terms of corporate income tax competition,corporate income tax competition has a negative spatial spillover effect on high-tech industry innovation output,but its indirect effect is not significant,which indicates that corporate income tax competition has no significant influence on high-tech industry innovation output in neighboring regions.