The impact of government subsidies on the human resources and innovation output of makerspaces according to signal theory

In addition to solving the externality problem of innovation, government subsidies (GSs) also serve as a signal to attract talents. This research investigated the signal effect of GSs on human resources in terms of improving innovation output. We used the least squares method and bootstrapping technique to conduct an empirical study on China's makerspaces in 2017 and employed a robustness test on the data from 2017 to 2019. The results indicate that the signal effect released by GSs can help a makerspace attract more talents so as to realise innovation efficiently. Moreover, the same amount of GSs can attract more talents to a private makerspace than to a state-owned counterpart. Furthermore, regions with high degree of marketisation can help makerspaces attract talents; that is, the moderating effect of ownership is further moderated by the marketisation degree.