How strengthened intellectual property protection creates jobs? Empirical evidence from listed firms in China under a pilot policy

Understanding how intellectual-property protection shapes employment is vital for policies that spur sustainable job growth. Most studies examine IP protection’s role in innovation, leaving its employment effects underexplored. Using data from Chinese listed firms between 2006 and 2019, this paper adopts a stacked difference-in-differences approach to evaluate the effect of the National Intellectual Property Model City Policy on firm-level employment. The results show that the policy significantly increases employment in pilot-city firms, and the impact is stronger for companies that already employ more R&D personnel (direct effect), channel additional capital into scaling up production (vertical innovation), or generate new products and services that open up fresh positions (horizontal innovation). Further analysis indicates that the policy reduces the proportion of low-skilled workers, signaling an upgrading of workforce skills. Heterogeneity analysis based on machine learning shows that firm size, educational infrastructure, and ecological environment further amplify the policy's employment effects. These findings suggest that strengthening intellectual property regimes and improving urban infrastructure can foster job growth and optimize policy outcomes.