Science Research Management ›› 2021, Vol. 42 ›› Issue (2): 40-51.

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Government financial intervention, heterogeneous FDI and regional innovation capability

Lei Shuzhen1, Gao Yu1, Liu Zhenqing2   

  1. 1. School of Economics and Management, Northwest University, Xi′an 710127, Shaanxi, China; 
    2. Institute for Management Science and Engineering, Henan University, Kaifeng 475004, Henan, China
  • Received:2020-04-25 Revised:2020-09-18 Online:2021-02-20 Published:2021-02-23

Abstract:

Regional innovation capability is an important factor to measure whether a region can achieve technological innovation, industrial transformation and upgrading, and economic growth. Foreign direct investment (FDI) is an important way for the host country to achieve regional innovation capabilities. The changes in international trade rules and the current changes in domestic economic environment have profoundly affected FDI investment form in China. Therefore, the reassessment of FDI investment motivation and its impact on regional innovation capabilities in various regions of our country has become a practical problem that domestic scholars and policy makers need to solve urgently at the theoretical and empirical levels. Based on the heterogeneity of FDI, this paper discusses the impact of FDI on regional innovation capabilities from the three types of resource-oriented FDI, efficiency-oriented FDI and market-oriented FDI. 
    The results caused by regional innovation behaviors have the characteristics of public products such as uncertainty and externalities, which make innovation behaviors, have the possibility of market failure. This provides theoretical support for government intervention in innovation activities. Schumpeter, the founder of innovation theory, believes that technological innovation is high-input and high-risk. Only large enterprises with strong qualifications are able to bear the investment and risks of technological innovation, and it is difficult for small and medium-sized enterprises with weak strength to realize technological innovation. Therefore, in practice, the government needs to balance the interests between small and medium-sized enterprises in innovative activities so that the social economy can achieve healthy and sustainable growth. On this basis, this paper incorporates government fiscal intervention into the research framework of the impact of heterogeneous FDI on regional innovation capabilities, and studies the nonlinear threshold effect of government fiscal intervention. This paper divides China′s provinces into eastern and western regions to analyze regional differences in order to explain the impact of regional differences in heterogeneous FDI on regional innovation capabilities. Taking 2008 as the dividing line, further analyze the impact of heterogeneous FDI on regional innovation capabilities in different time periods.
   The conclusions show that: (1) Different types of FDI have a significant role in promoting regional innovation capabilities. However, after the combined effect, the impact of resource-oriented FDI on regional innovation capabilities has failed to pass the significance test. efficiency oriented FDI has a significant role in promoting regional innovation capability, and market-oriented FDI inhibits the improvement of regional innovation capabilities; (2) The impact of heterogeneous FDI on regional innovation capacity has threshold effect, that is, the impact of three different types of FDI on regional innovation ability has single threshold effect of government financial intervention, and with the strengthening of government intervention, all types of FDI have more and more significant effect on regional innovation ability; (3) The impact of heterogeneous FDI on regional innovation capabilities exists Certain regional differences. In the western region, the resource-based FDI has a significant promoting effect on the regional innovation capability, while the market-oriented FDI has no significant effect on the regional innovation capability; In the eastern region, the resource-based FDI has no significant effect on the regional innovation capability, and the market-oriented FDI has a significant promoting effect on the regional innovation capability; (4) There is a certain time difference in the influence of FDI on regional innovation capacity. Around 2008, different types of FDI have different impacts on regional innovation capability. 
   Based on this, this article believes that it is possible to improve the regional innovation capabilities of various regions by adjusting the intensity of government financial intervention and balancing the investment structure.

Key words: government financial intervention, FDI, threshold effect, regional innovation capability