This lengthy project abbreviation stands for China, Innovation, and Competition. The project funded by the German Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) studies the effect and efficiency of Chinese research and innovation policy on the competitive capacity of Chinese companies, as well as the reaction of German companies to increasing Chinese import competition. Since October 2021, we have been working together with the Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) on this project. The main objective is to identify and understand if product market competition with producers from China, as well as increasing Chinese offers of high-tech intermediate inputs in factor markets, is an incentive or brake for innovation activities of German companies.
We pursue the above-mentioned research objectives in three work packages (WP). WP 1 examines the causal influence of innovations on competitiveness in China. Particular attention is paid to the question of whether the Chinese R&I policy succeeds in generating stronger productivity effects through mission-oriented innovation incentives compared to market-oriented innovations. In WP 2 and WP 3 we examine how German companies adapt to increasing Chinese import competition, as China is the largest importer in Germany as of 2014. Hence, WP 2 examines the causal influence of Chinese import competition on innovation and total factor productivity in Germany. WP 3 complements this analysis by conducting detailed case studies in German companies analyzing changes in innovation policy, R&D structures, R&D location shift to China, as well as R&D investments and with it pursued objectives.
For the ZEW this project increases its broad China expertise and for the University of Hohenheim this project builds on the expertise developed through the CHIKOH Project also funded by the Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF).
