Technological enterprises are faced with high risks of technology innovation. A good financing system can improve technological innovation performance by tolerating and bearing the risk of technological trial and error and commercial exploration. Equity financing and debt financing have different risk tolerance for technological innovation, which makes different supporting effects on high-risk technological innovation projects. From the perspective of risk tolerance, this paper reveals the influence path of equity and debt financing on technological innovation decision-making, and expands the research framework that financial institutions′ risk tolerance capacity and entrepreneur risk preference endogenously affect enterprise technological innovation. This article is not only of great significance for enriching the existing science and technology finance theory, but also of practical value for technology management departments to formulate science and technology financial policies to encourage innovation.

The key of financial system to support innovation is the risk tolerance and risk-taking of financial intermediaries and financial markets for high-risk innovation projects. There has been controversy in academic circles about whether equity financing or debt financing can better support technological innovation. Scholars generally believe that debt financing has advantages for low-risk traditional industries, while equity financing has more advantages for high-risk technology industries. In fact, compared with debt financing, the equity financing allows companies to obtain long-term equity financing support directly from the capital market without collateral, and equity financing can better disperse the risk of technological innovation than debt financing. Therefore, the risk tolerance of equity financing to technological innovation risk is higher than that of debt financing, which can encourage entrepreneurs to carry out technological trial and business exploration. To sum up, equity financing with higher risk tolerance can enhance entrepreneurs′ risk preference more than debt financing, and endogenously encourage risk-averse entrepreneurs to become risk-biased entrepreneurs, thus improving the technological innovation performance of the whole society.

Based on the transnational dynamic panel data of 52 countries or regions in the world′s major economies from 1996 to 2013, this paper empirically tests the impact of equity financing and debt financing on technological innovation performance by using system generalized method of moment and panel econometric model. The main conclusions of this paper are as follows: (1) equity financing has higher risk tolerance to technological innovation failure than debt financing, which can enhance entrepreneurs′ risk preference and encourage technological innovation; (2) there is a significant positive correlation between equity financing and technological innovation, and a significant negative correlation between debt financing and technological innovation; (3) mature stock markets in developed countries have greater risk tolerance than emerging stock markets in developing countries, and are more conducive to promoting technological innovation; (4) compared with debt financing, equity financing has a positive impact on the performance of technological innovation in both economic uptrend period and economic downtrend period.

These findings have some important policy implications and suggestions for countries to improve their financing support system of innovation. First, enhance the risk tolerance of the stock market and bank intermediaries, and rely on the external financing system to tolerate and absorb the technological innovation risks of high-tech enterprises. Second, reduce the restrictions on equity financing of science and technology enterprises and encourage the development of multi-level capital markets. Third, improve the mechanism of risk compensation for technological innovation through government interest discount, loan guarantee and intellectual property pledge. Fourth, give full play to the role of the stock market and banks as financial stabilizers to maintain financial stability and enhance the ability of finance system to support technological innovation of enterprises.