“Business Tax to Value-added Tax” and Enterprise Innovation Output: Evidence from Listed Companies in China

This paper examined the impact of “Business Tax to Value-added Tax” on enterprises’ innovation output, substantive innovation and the related mechanism. We use a natural experiment involving China’s business tax changing to value-added tax (“BT to VAT”) and a mediating effect mechanism to identify any causality. The results reveal that “BT to VAT” reform has prompted enterprises to increase their innovation output and substantive innovation, and the level of R&D investment plays an intermediary role in the relationship between “BT to VAT” and the entire innovation output and the relationship between “BT to VAT” and the substantive innovation output of enterprises. Further analysis demonstrates that firms with different ownership types, in different industries and with different degrees of marketization respond differently to the “BT to VAT” policy. Our findings are only significant for non-state-owned enterprises, high-tech enterprises and enterprises in high-marketization degree area. This paper provides a theoretical and empirical basis for detailed analyses of the effects of “BT to VAT” policy, particularly the government’s subsequent improvement to the tax reform policy, to further stimulate enterprise investments in innovation as well as industrial upgrading.