告别“专利泡沫”：高价值专利能带来劳动力技能结构升级吗？

Farewell to the “Patent Bubble”: Can High-Value Patents Bring about Labor Skill Structure Upgrading?

摘要:

在科技强国与质量强国建设的双重背景下,如何告别“专利泡沫”、推动高价值专利从数量扩张转向质量提升,并有效引导劳动力技能结构向高级化演进,已成为当前经济高质量发展的重要议题。本文基于2010—2024年中国A股上市公司面板数据,从任务重构视角出发,实证分析高价值专利对企业劳动力技能结构的影响及其传导机制。研究发现,高价值专利显著降低了企业常规低技能劳动力占比,同时显著提升了非常规高技能劳动力占比,呈现出替代低技能、创造高技能的效应,这一结论在一系列稳健性检验后依然成立。机制检验表明,高价值专利通过推动人力资本升级和企业智能化转型两条路径重塑劳动力技能结构。调节效应检验显示,区域市场化程度强化了高价值专利的技能结构优化效应,而经济政策不确定性感知则削弱了这一效应。异质性分析表明,高价值专利对劳动力技能结构的影响在技术密集型行业、非重污染企业中更为显著。进一步研究发现,高价值专利所驱动的劳动力技能优化最终显著提升了企业全要素生产率与劳动生产效率。本文从技术创新质量视角拓展了技术进步与劳动力就业关系的理论认知,揭示了高价值专利通过任务重构驱动技能结构变迁的微观机制,为优化专利质量评价体系、制定差异化就业促进政策以及引导企业合理配置劳动力资源提供了经验依据与政策启示。

Abstract:

Against the dual background of building a leading country in science and technology as well as in quality, how to bid farewell to the “patent bubble”, promote the transformation of high-value patents from quantity expansion to quality improvement, and effectively guide the evolution of labor skill structure toward a more advanced stage has become an important issue for high-quality economic development. Based on panel data of China’s A-share listed companies from 2010 to 2024, this paper adopts a task reconfiguration perspective to empirically analyze the impact of high-value patents on corporate labor skill structure and its transmission mechanisms. The findings show that high-value patents significantly reduce the share of routine low-skilled labor while significantly increasing the share of non-routine high-skilled labor, exhibiting an effect of substituting low-skilled labor and creating high-skilled labor. This conclusion remains robust after a series of robustness tests. Mechanism tests reveal that high-value patents reshape labor skill structure through two pathways: promoting human capital upgrading and facilitating corporate intelligent transformation. Moderation effect tests show that regional marketization strengthens the skill structure optimization effect of high-value patents, while economic policy uncertainty perception weakens this effect. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that the impact of high-value patents on labor skill structure is more pronounced in technology-intensive industries and non-heavy-polluting firms. Further research finds that the labor skill optimization driven by high-value patents ultimately significantly improves corporate total factor productivity and labor productivity. This paper extends the theoretical understanding of the relationship between technological progress and labor employment from the perspective of technological innovation quality, reveals the micro-mechanisms through which high-value patents drive skill structure changes via task reconfiguration, and provides empirical evidence and policy implications for optimizing patent quality evaluation systems, formulating differentiated employment promotion policies, and guiding firms to rationally allocate labor resources.