Research and Development (R&D) is one of the most important ways to increase the innovation ability and market competitiveness of firms.In reality,the decisions of firm R&D investment include two stages:whether to invest and how much will invest.Different from previous research,based on the reality of low involvement and investment in R&D activities for the firms in China,this paper mainly discusses and compares the factors and differences between the two stages of R&D investment decision.First,the decision factors and mechanism of R&D investment are discussed theoretically from three aspects of firm characteristics,industry characteristics and external shocks.The firm characteristics include firm size,firm age,profitability,financial condition and ownership,etc.The industry characteristics include the average R&D investment level,market competition,R&D distribution and external resources of R&D investment,etc.The external shocks mainly refer to the govemment subsidies.Then,the selection and investment equations are built by Heckman two-step method.Using micro-data of Chinese industrial firms and medium-data of industrial industries in 2007,the two sides of R&D decisions are tested empirically.The results are shown that the selective bias of firm R&D activities really exists and the two stages of R&D decision are influenced by different factors.Except the profitability,the firm characteristics,industry characteristics and government subsidies all influence the decision of firms whether to invest.The firm size,industry R&D level,market competition and government subsidies are all positively correlated to R&D intensity,while the profitability decreases R&D investment.Last,according to the division of firms'ownership,the results show that the decision mechanism of R&D activities is apparently different in state-owned,foreign and private firms.The ownership is one of the important factors influencing R&D investments.The R&D intensity in state-owned firms is mostly influenced by firm characteristics,but not related with industry characteristics.Except that high profitability restricts R&D investment,the decisions of foreign firms are almost consistent with the theoretical expectation.The private firms with high profitability would like to invest in R&D activities,but as the time of operation the firms will pursue short-term profits instead of investments in R&D activities.%研发投资是企业提高技术创新能力和市场竞争力的重要途径.与以往研究不同,针对中国企业研发参与度小和投入强度低的现实,本文从企业属性、行业特征和外部冲击三个角度探究了研发投资的决定因素及作用机制,进而利用Heckman两步法建立选择和投资方程,以2007年中国工业企业的微观数据和工业行业的中观数据为样本,就企业研发决策的两面性问题进行了实证检验,发现企业研发行为的选择性偏误确实存在,是否研发与投入多少会受到不同因素的制约,来自所有制分组的回归结果显示,企业性质是影响研发投资的重要因素,国有、外资和私营企业在研发决策机制方面存在巨大差异.
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