政府补助与企业数字化转型——基于信号传递的视角

张志元　马永凡

（山东财经大学金融学院）

内容提要：政府补助对企业转型发展具有重要的引导作用，面对数字经济时代企业的数字化转型困境，政府补助能否进一步发挥效力值得深入探究。本文选取2010—2018年A股上市公司数据，通过关键词筛选和人工复核的方法识别政府的数字化转型补助，基于信号传递视角系统评估政府补助对企业数字化转型的影响。研究结果表明：在考虑内生性等问题后，政府补助对企业数字化水平具有积极效应；在信号传递机制中，政府补助通过降低企业信息不对称、缓解融资约束及增强产学研协同能力推动企业数字化转型；异质性分析显示，政府补助会因企业、行业和区域特征而产生非对称效果；进一步分析表明，政府补助能提升企业数字化转型质量，但也使得企业间的分化加剧。本文对深入理解企业数字化转型中的政府定位及完善相关补贴政策具有一定的启示意义。

关键词：政府补助；企业数字化；信号传递机制；融资约束；产学研协同

作者简介：张志元，山东财经大学金融学院教授、博士生导师，济南，250014；马永凡，山东财经大学金融学院博士研究生，通信作者。

基金项目：山东省软科学计划重大项目“数字经济赋能山东实体经济高质量发展的实现路径研究”（2020RZB01169）；山东省社会科学规划数字山东专项“山东数字经济发展赋能新旧动能转换研究”（20CSDJ25）

引用格式：张志元,马永凡.政府补助与企业数字化转型——基于信号传递的视角[J].经济与管理研究,2023,44(1):111-128.DOI:10.13502/j.cnki.issn1000-7636.2023.01.007.

　　

　　

Government Subsidy and Digital Transformation of Enterprise

—A Signaling-based Perspective

ZHANG Zhiyuan, MA Yongfan

(Shandong University of Finance and Economics, Jinan 250014)

　　

　　Abstract: Digital transformation of enterprises can reduce costs and improve efficiency, becoming an important policy tool for actively developing new economic dynamics. Meanwhile, government subsidies, as an important means of government intervention, can have a signaling effect on the concentration of social resources to enterprises. Facing the digital transformation dilemma of enterprises in the digital economy era, whether government subsidies can further play an effective role deserves in-depth study.This paper evaluates the impact of government subsidies on the digital transformation of enterprises from a signaling perspective, using A-share listed enterprises in China from 2010 to 2018. It is found that government subsidies have a positive effect on the digitization level of enterprises, which remains robust after solving the endogeneity and other issues. This effect is attributed to the ability of government subsidies to reduce information asymmetry, alleviate financing constraints, and enhance industry-academic-research synergy, implying that government subsidies have a positive signaling effect on the digital transformation of enterprises. Furthermore, the positive effect of government subsidies is heterogeneous, especially stronger in growing firms, non-service industries, and regions with better governance environments. Moreover, the digital transformation of enterprises subsidized by the government may have opposite economic consequences. On the one hand, government subsidies enable enterprises to increase their value through digital transformation. On the other hand, government subsidies show polarization effects in the transformation at the regional and industry levels, widening the transformation gap among enterprises.This paper may contribute to the existing literature in the following ways. Firstly, it investigates the driving mechanism of the digital transformation of enterprises from the perspective of government subsidies, taking into account the interactive response between macro policies and micro enterprise behaviors in digital China construction, deepening the research on industrial digitization. Secondly, it identifies government subsidies supporting the digital transformation of enterprises and excludes the influence of other subsidy policies through keyword screening and manual review, providing insight into the economic impact of special government subsidy grants. Therefore, it is necessary to take advantage of industrial digitization to accelerate the construction of a modern industrial system, and smooth the information channels with the full release of positive signals of government subsidies to form a leading demonstration role.

　　Keywords: government subsidy; enterprise digitization; signaling mechanism; financing constraint; industry-academic-research synergy