Zeyi Qian (钱则一)

Large-scale government procurement has a significant impact on both firm performance and macroeconomic development. This paper constructs a comprehensive Chinese government procurement database and, based on matched data with the Chinese tax survey database, reveals the following key findings: Government procurement shows a notable preference for "selecting the best," favoring high-performing firms as contract awardees. Additionally, government procurement has a "nurturing" effect, as firms' performance continues to grow after winning contracts, a result further analyzed through mechanism analysis. Further investigation shows that government procurement can help small firms, startups, and emerging industries grow rapidly. Based on these findings, we designed and calibrated a model to create a virtual economy for counterfactual simulation. This simulation shows that the "selecting" and "nurturing" mechanisms in government procurement enhance overall productivity by 9.15% and increase GDP by 8.29%. We also simulated alternative policy scenarios, such as government procurement aimed at supporting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Our findings suggest that while this policy promotes SME expansion, it also lowers overall productivity.

Technology-based startups are the main force in emerging industries and the source of disruptive technologies, but they face information barriers when acquiring knowledge, technology, and other resources necessary for innovation. As an important platform for connecting resources such as knowledge, technology, and capital, 'how' and 'through what channels' venture capital influences corporate technological innovation are still lacking reliable evidence and direct mechanisms in theory. Based on a matched database constructed from China's tax survey data, venture capital data, and granted invention patent data, this paper empirically tests the impact, mechanism, and source of venture capital on the technological innovation of technology-based startups, and verifies the role of venture capital in corporate innovation resource acquisition based on firm-pair level data. This study finds: (1) Venture capital enhances the quantity but not the quality of technological innovation in technology-based startups, and the results are more significant when venture capitalists with diversified information channels; (2) The embedding of technology-based startups in venture capital networks is beneficial for them to obtain innovation resources from formal channels such as technology transfer and R&D cooperation; (3) In the acquisition of innovation resources in technology-based startups, venture capital mainly plays the role of an “information broker” rather than a “reputation endorser”. This research will provide both theoretical insights and policy implications for accurately understanding the information barriers encountered in the innovation of technology-based startups, as well as for understanding the role and mechanism of venture capital in technological innovation.