{"title":"Does “Made in China (2025)” improve innovation quality in robotics? Evidence from PageRank-based patent network","authors":"Yihan Han , Silu Pang , Fuxin Jiang , Tao Wang","doi":"10.1016/j.econmod.2025.107299","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>As industrial policy shifts toward innovation orientation, understanding its role in shaping high-quality innovation is both timely and essential. This paper evaluates the impact of China's “Made in China (2025)” (MIC2025) pilot policy on the innovation quality of robotics firms using a difference-in-differences approach. To overcome limitations of traditional patent indicators, we introduce an enhanced PageRank algorithm to measure high-value innovation through patent citation networks. Results show that the MIC2025 policy significantly improves innovation quality, particularly in midstream and downstream segments of the robotics value chain. Mechanism analysis reveals that targeted innovation subsidies, stronger intellectual property protection, enhanced technology diffusion, and talent agglomeration jointly contribute to this improvement. These findings highlight how targeted industrial policy can foster high-quality innovation and suggest that future policy design should align support with firm capabilities and value chain characteristics.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48419,"journal":{"name":"Economic Modelling","volume":"152 ","pages":"Article 107299"},"PeriodicalIF":4.7000,"publicationDate":"2025-09-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Economic Modelling","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264999325002949","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
As industrial policy shifts toward innovation orientation, understanding its role in shaping high-quality innovation is both timely and essential. This paper evaluates the impact of China's “Made in China (2025)” (MIC2025) pilot policy on the innovation quality of robotics firms using a difference-in-differences approach. To overcome limitations of traditional patent indicators, we introduce an enhanced PageRank algorithm to measure high-value innovation through patent citation networks. Results show that the MIC2025 policy significantly improves innovation quality, particularly in midstream and downstream segments of the robotics value chain. Mechanism analysis reveals that targeted innovation subsidies, stronger intellectual property protection, enhanced technology diffusion, and talent agglomeration jointly contribute to this improvement. These findings highlight how targeted industrial policy can foster high-quality innovation and suggest that future policy design should align support with firm capabilities and value chain characteristics.
期刊介绍:
Economic Modelling fills a major gap in the economics literature, providing a single source of both theoretical and applied papers on economic modelling. The journal prime objective is to provide an international review of the state-of-the-art in economic modelling. Economic Modelling publishes the complete versions of many large-scale models of industrially advanced economies which have been developed for policy analysis. Examples are the Bank of England Model and the US Federal Reserve Board Model which had hitherto been unpublished. As individual models are revised and updated, the journal publishes subsequent papers dealing with these revisions, so keeping its readers as up to date as possible.