Financial reform and innovation: Evidence from China’s Financial Reform Pilot Zones

ABSTRACT Innovation is a channel through which financial reform promotes economic growth. Drawing on the quasi-experiment of China’s Financial Reform Pilot Zones, panel data from 293 prefecture-level cities in China from 2003 to 2019, and a difference-in-differences method, this paper evaluates the effect of financial reform on innovation. We find that financial reform significantly motivated innovation by promoting financial development, such as equity market development and credit market development. Moreover, the effect of financial reform on innovation shows diminishing marginal utility: in cities that started with a lower level of financial development, the policy effect on innovation is stronger.