【摘要】 本文构建了可用于研究参与电商平台如何影响企业创新的理论模型，并在此基础上匹配了2002—2019年1688电商平台与中国专利数据库中高度细化的微观企业数据，实证检验了参与电商平台对制造业企业创新的影响效应和内在机制。本文主要的研究结论是：(1)参与电商平台将显著提升制造业企业的创新水平，该结果在经过倾向得分匹配、基于工具变量的内生性处理等一系列稳健性检验后依然显著成立。(2)影响机制方面，参与电商平台主要通过扩大市场规模和促进知识溢出两个渠道推动制造业企业创新。(3)基于创新网络的拓展性分析发现，参与电商平台还将显著提升制造业企业在创新网络中的专利中心度以及明星专利数。因此，本文研究可为探索数字经济与实体经济深度融合的创新驱动路径提供有益支撑。更多还原

【Abstract】 The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China highlighted the importance of integrating the digital economy with the real economy for high-quality development. E-commerce platforms play a key role in this process. In 2022, China’s e-commerce transactions reached CNY 43.83 trillion, accounting for 36.22% of GDP, signaling the growing influence of the digital economy on economic growth. Innovation is recognized as the primary driver of economic development. Despite significant progress, China still faces gaps in basic research and frontier research. So establishing long-term mechanisms to boost innovation capabilities has become a critical pursuit for high-quality development in China. Undoubtedly, the platform economy can facilitate knowledge sharing and drive innovation of firms across sectors. Thus, this paper explores the effect of e-commerce platforms on manufacturing firm innovation, providing insights and support for deepening the integration of the digital economy with the real economy.We first present a theoretical model to study how participating in e-commerce platforms affects firm innovation. We merge detailed micro-level data collected from the 1688 e-commerce platform and the Chinese patent database spanning from 2002 to 2019. This allows us to provide empirical evidence on the effects and underlying mechanisms of participating in e-commerce platforms on manufacturing firm innovation. The key findings are as follows. First, participating in e-commerce platforms significantly enhances manufacturing firm innovation strength. Our results still hold even after conducting various robustness checks. Second, the mechanism tests indicate that participating in e-commerce platforms fosters manufacturing firm innovation by expanding market demand and facilitating knowledge spillover. Third, further analysis reveals that participating in e-commerce platforms significantly increases the centrality of manufacturing firms in the innovation network and the number of notable patents they possess.We make marginal contributions in two key areas. First, we provide novel insights into the impact of manufacturing firms’ participation in e-commerce platforms on innovation, offering a unique perspective hardly found in the existing literature. In other words, we delve into the mechanisms of innovation that can drive the integration of the digital economy with the real economy and provide theoretical support using a stylized model. And we investigate the underlying mechanisms, focusing on the demand effect and knowledge spillover effect. Second, we collect large-scale data on the citation relationships of all invention patents covering the period from 2002 to 2019, accessible via the Google Patents Database. Also, we collect unique data from the 1688 platform, China’s largest e-commerce platform. By combining these micro-level datasets with the China Industry Business Performance Database, we establish a solid material foundation for estimating the causal effect of participating in e-commerce platforms on firm innovation. Additionally, we apply the approach of network analysis to construct measurements for firms’ innovation positions in the patent citation network, to identify the structure of patent technology diffusion and more comprehensively depict the innovation level of a firm.To accelerate the integration of the digital economy with the real economy for high-quality development, we propose the following innovation-driven policy implications based on our findings. First, it is necessary to grasp the dividends and opportunities of a new round of digital technology revolution including e-commerce platforms. By digitally empowering transactions using the online marketplace, to alleviate the geographic barriers and information friction facing traditional offline transactions, a significant increase in firms’ strength of innovation can be realized. Second, it is necessary to encourage firms to use digital tools, such as user profile analysis and competitor analysis tools, offered by e-commerce platforms, to boost innovation. This can provide more insights and inspirations for firms’ R&D activities by helping them to leverage external knowledge and information. Third, it is necessary to bring the network effect of e-commerce platforms into play. E-commerce platforms link firms together and enhance the transmission of data, information, and knowledge within the innovation network. This can help firms to continuously move towards the center of the innovation network and realize a higher level of innovation.更多还原