Do Regulatory Sandboxes Promote Corporate Digital Innovation? Evidence from a Staggered Difference-in-Differences Design
Main Article Content
Keywords
regulatory sandbox, digital innovation, financing costs, management efficiency, digital transformation
Abstract
As a novel regulatory tool designed to balance innovation incentives and risk control, the effectiveness of the regulatory sandbox is an important issue of digital economic governance. This study exploits China's regulatory sandbox pilot program as a quasi-natural experiment. Based on the data of A-share listed companies from 2011 to 2023, a staggered difference-in-differences (DID) model is used to test the impact of the regulatory sandbox on the digital innovation of enterprises. The study found that the regulatory sandbox has significantly promoted the improvement of the digital innovation capacity of enterprises, and this conclusion is still valid after a variety of robustness tests. Mechanism analysis shows that the regulatory sandbox drives enterprise digital innovation by reducing financing costs, improving risk control, increasing R&D investment and promoting digital transformation. Heterogeneity analysis shows that the policy effect is more significant in small and medium-sized enterprises, low-profitable enterprises and low-level economic development areas. This article provides empirical evidence for optimizing financial technology supervision and accurately supporting the digital transformation of enterprises.
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