R&D Investment, Skill-Based Wage Gap, and Firm Innovation Performance: Evidence from Chinese Listed Companies

Against China’s innovation-driven strategy, this study explores the impact of R&D investment on firm innovation performance and the mediating role of the wage gap between high- and low-skilled labor (HLWG) using data from Chinese A-share non-financial listed firms spanning 2010–2022. Employing static panel regression, Bootstrap test, and instrumental variables (R&D investment deduction, college enrollment expansion), the study finds three key results. First, R&D investment positively affects both firm innovation performance and HLWG. Second, HLWG exerts a positive impact on firm innovation performance. Third, HLWG plays a partial mediating role in the relationship between R&D investment and firm innovation performance. Robustness tests and instrumental variable regression confirm the stability of these conclusions. This finding enriches the theoretical understanding of the R&D-innovation transmission mechanism, offers insights into enterprises to coordinate R&D investment and wage structure optimization, and provides policy references for refining innovation incentives and labor market policies.

• Publication year

  2025

• Venue

  Journal of Risk and Financial Management

• Publication date

  2025-11-05

• Fields of study

  Not labeled

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.3390/jrfm18110619
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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