The impact of government support on firm innovation: Evidence from China

Abstract This paper systematically analyzes the relationship between government support and private enterprise innovation. A firm‐level proxy for government support is derived based on Chinese context. Specifically, we explore whether and how government subsidies affect private firms' innovation output. We find that government subsidies can promote private enterprise innovation, and this impact will be further strengthened when firms face high level of financing constraints and when large shareholders pledge their equities. However, this impact will be weakened in regions with high marketization degree and good information environment. Further analysis shows that government support can have a positive impact on corporate innovation by increasing private firms' innovation input and reducing financing costs. Our study sheds new light on the role of government support by investigating the boundary conditions and exploring the impact channel of its effect. Also, this paper fills a gap in the research on the role of government support and the situational research by putting this issue in Chinese context.