Data factor marketization empowering enterprise innovation quality: New evidence from Chinese patent citations

This study investigates the relationship between data factor marketization (DFM) and enterprise innovation quality (EIQ) through econometric analysis. Leveraging the staggered implementation of data trading platforms across Chinese cities as a quasi-natural experiment, we employ difference-in-differences methodology on comprehensive panel data from Chinese listed companies spanning 2007–2022. Our findings demonstrate that DFM implementation significantly elevates innovation quality among affected enterprises. The conclusion remains robust across multiple specification tests, placebo analyses, and instrumental variable approaches addressing endogeneity concerns. The research illuminates four distinct mechanisms through which DFM enhances innovation: strengthening enterprise information infrastructure, alleviating financing constraints, stabilizing supplier relationships, and increasing the scale of intangible assets of enterprises. DFM has stronger promoting effects on EIQ in large cities, eastern cities, and cities with higher intellectual property protection levels, and is also more capable of enhancing innovation quality in state-owned enterprises, growth-stage enterprises, and enterprises with CEOs having information technology backgrounds. These findings advance theoretical understanding of digital transformation's role in innovation systems while offering empirical foundations for policy frameworks seeking to leverage data as a strategic production factor. By demonstrating the multifaceted pathways through which market-based allocation of data elements influences innovation outcomes, this research contributes to the scholarly discourse on innovation drivers in transitional economies.