The impact of government subsidies on technological innovation of new energy vehicle enterprises: from the perspective of industry chain

This study examines the incentive effects of government subsidies on the R & D activities of listed companies of new energy vehicle (NEV)s from the perspective of the industrial chain. Our research contributes to a better understanding of the impact of government subsidies on the R & D activities of NEV companies. The main empirical results have three aspects. Firstly, government subsidies are effective in promoting R & D investments and non-inventive patent output in the NEV industry, but their impact on more challenging inventive patent output is not significant. Secondly, the efficiency of the impact of government subsidies on different stages of the NEV industry chain varies. The subsidies have a small and statistically insignificant impact on R & D investment and output of upstream enterprises, and there is a slight crowding out effect on patent output. The subsidies have the greatest incentive effect on the R & D investment of midstream enterprises, which is 2.5 times that of upstream enterprises and 1.7 times that of downstream enterprises. However, the impact of subsidies on the patent output of midstream enterprises is not significant. Thirdly, further analysis shows that there is a threshold for government subsidies on enterprise patent applications, which is 21.5438. When the subsidies are less than the threshold, they have no significant impact on innovation output. Only when the subsidies exceed the threshold will subsidies significantly increase innovation output. In conclusion, we suggest that the government considers the different characteristics of the upstream, midstream, and downstream enterprises and the threshold effect when subsidizing the NEV industry.