中小企业受制于资金和规模限制,在创新之路上常常难以“独善其身”,创新力不强的困境近年来不断凸显。探讨如何运用政策工具驱动中小企业创新力提升具有重要意义。本文基于2013—2020年A股中小板和创业板上市公司数据构建双重差分模型,从合作创新的视角考察了研发费用加计扣除政策影响中小企业创新力的微观机理。研究发现:(1)研发费用加计扣除政策的实施能够显著提升中小企业创新力,体现为创新持续性、创新质量和全要素生产率的提高。(2)机制分析表明,研发费用加计扣除政策对中小企业创新力产生影响的机制是促进企业间的合作创新。(3)该政策通过加计扣除与合作创新相关的费用,降低了合作伙伴的搜索成本和知识泄露的风险成本,从而提升了中小企业的合作创新意愿。(4)研发费用加计扣除政策对中小企业合作创新的促进效应在数字化程度较高的企业中表现得更明显,且高技术密集度行业以及科技中介和创新平台建设更完善区域的企业从政策优惠中获益更大。本文丰富了中小企业创新政策的理论和实证研究,对中小企业通过合作创新促进创新力提升具有重要启示。

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are constrained by financial and scale limitations, and it is often difficult for them to “do it alone” on the road of innovation. The status quo of SMEs’ weak innovative capacity has been highlighted in recent years. It is of great significance to discuss how to use policy tools to promote innovation in SMEs. This paper constructed a DID model based on the data of listed companies on SEM and GEM boards from 2013 to 2020, and examined the micro-mechanism of the impact of pretax additional deduction policy for R&D expenditure on SMEs’ innovation ability from the perspective of cooperative innovation. The study found that: (1) The implementation of pretax additional deduction policy for R&D expenditure can significantly enhance the innovation capacity of SMEs, which is reflected in the improvement of innovation continuity, innovation quality and total factor productivity. (2) Mechanism analysis shows that the mechanism by which pretax additional deduction policy for R&D expenditure affects SMEs’ innovation capacity is to promote collaborative innovation among firms. (3) The policy reduces the search costs for collaborative partners and risk costs for knowledge leakage by adding the deduction of costs related to collaborative innovation, thus enhancing the willingness of SMEs to collaborate and innovate. (4) The promotional effect of pretax additional deduction policy for R&D expenditure on SMEs’ collaborative innovation is more pronounced in highly digitized firms, and firms in highly technology-intensive industries and in regions with better science and technology intermediation and innovation platforms have benefited more from the policy benefits. This paper enriches the theoretical and empirical research on SMEs’ innovation policies, and will provide important insights into the promotion of innovative capacity through collaborative innovation in SMEs.