摘要
社会保险缴费对企业生产率和创新水平存在何种影响?既有研究得出社保费倒逼或挤压生产率两种相悖的结论。本文采用工具变量模型,利用2008—2016年中国非金融上市企业数据进行了实证检验。结果表明:企业社保缴费率每提高1个百分点,全要素生产率提高1.78%,发明专利数量提高5.30%,即提高社保缴费率对创新具有“倒逼”效应。本文采用2013年深圳提高社保缴费率这一准自然实验证实了该结论。本文还证实,缴费率与创新存在非线性关系,在社保缴费率超过20%后,倒逼效应显著变小。进一步分析表明:倒逼效应在中小规模、高工资、高研发水平以及增长期企业中更明显;企业研发投入、工资水平和劳动生产率等为相应的机制。本文有助于厘清社会保险缴费对企业生产率和创新的影响,对实现社保费征收与经济协调发展具有政策意义。
Different from the Anglo-Saxon liberal welfare model and the Nordic welfare regime,the Chinese social welfare system is characterized by the arrangement in which firms are core pillars of the social insurance financing system.To be specific,firms are obliged to pay the most significant part of the social insurance contributions for their employees.The legal contribution rate is nearly 40%of laborers’wage,of which 30%is borne by firms.Therefore,a major practical question is whether the social obligation borne by firms have an impact on their total factor productivity(TFP)and innovation levels?Is this impact positive or negative?The answer to the above question is underappreciated in the existing academic literature.Following the price-induced innovation theory,an increase in institutional labor costs caused by labor protection like the minimum wage,stringent legislation,dismissal protection,and unemployment benefits,may increase productivity through technology upgrading and human capital formation,or they may constrain cash flow and inhibit productivity.This paper contributes to the existing literature by using firm-level data to test which of the mechanisms above has a significant impact and whether the impact is economically significant.By exploiting an instrumental variable regression method and difference-in-differences method,this paper aims to overcome the endogeneity problem of social insurance.The main contributions of this paper are as follows:First,the impact of social insurance contribution rates on firms’total factor productivity and innovation,and whether it is economically meaningful,is pioneered using firm-level micro data.Second,based on the institutional characteristics of social insurance in China,a suitable instrumental variable is found,i.e.,provincial and municipal social insurance collection agencies as the instrumental variable for the actual social insurance contribution rate of enterprises,which effectively addresses the endogeneity problem.In addition,comparing levy efficiency between two collecting agencies has policy implications for the debate on the administrative reform of the China’s social insurance system.The Chinese social security system is highly decentralized regarding its policy implementation.Since 1999,Chinese local governments can choose between the taxation office and the social security agency to collect social insurance contributions.The two collecting agencies differ largely in many aspects,such as administrative resources and enforcement efficiency.Their choice has enormous implications for firms’actual contribution rate.Therefore,variations in the timing of choosing/changing social insurance collection agencies in different provincial regions can be used to estimate an instrumental variable model.This paper also eliminates the potential endogeneity of instrumental variable by means of event history analysis.This paper empirically analyzes how firms’social insurance contribution rate affects TFP and innovation by using the 2008-2016 data on China’s non-financial listed firms.Empirical evidence shows that the increase in contribution rate is associated with TFP growth and more patents.Specifically,the increase of 1 percentage point in firms’contribution rate will lead to a 1.78%increase in TFP and a 5.30%increase in invention patents,which supports the hypothesis that the social insurance contribution of firms improves their productivity and innovation.This paper also reveals the non-linear relationship between social insurance contribution rate and TFP.The inflection point is roughly calculated to be 20%.Furthermore,this positive association is more pronounced for firms with higher-level R&D intensity and wages and those operating at small industrial scales,and it is realized through technological transformation and upgrading of firms driven by social insurance contribution rate.The quasi-natural experiment in Shenzhen firms also confirms the same conclusion.The policy implications of this paper are threefold for Chinese policymakers as they consistently trapped in a dilemmatic trade-off between social welfare and economic productivity.Firstly,cutting taxes and contribution fees should be implemented continuously to ease firms’social contribution burden,especially in the post-Covid-19 era.Policy parameters other than social contribution rate should also be considered.Secondly,the positive relationship between social insurance contribution rate and TFP only applies to some firms.A more specific social contribution policy that targets heterogeneous firms should become one way to optimize the existing policy setting.Finally,the optimal level of firm social insurance contribution rate or social insurance burden should be explored to achieve coordinate development of social security system and economic productivity in the long run.
作者
汪佩洁
蒙克
黄海
黄炜
WANG Peijie;MENG Ke;HUANG Hai;HUANG Wei(School of Public Policy and Management,Tsinghua University;University of Chinese Academy of Scoial Sciences;National School of Development,Peking University)
出处
《经济研究》
CSSCI
北大核心
2022年第10期69-85,共17页
Economic Research Journal
关键词
社会保险缴费率
全要素生产率
创新
Social Insurance Contribution Rate
Total Factor Productivity
Innovation
作者简介
汪佩洁,清华大学公共管理学院,邮政编码:100084,电子信箱:wpj17@mails.tsinghua.edu.cn;蒙克,清华大学公共管理学院,邮政编码:100084,电子信箱:kemeng@tsinghua.edu.cn;黄海,中国社会科学院大学应用经济学院,邮政编码:103401,电子信箱:huanghainw@163.com;通讯作者:黄炜,北京大学国家发展研究院,邮政编码:100091,电子信箱:huangwei@nsd.pku.edu.cn。
