从风险投资角度切入，将企业全要素生产率作为核心变量，量化评估风险投资的垂直溢出效应。以2013—2022年中国A股上市公司为数据样本，系统探究产业链上下游风险投资活动强度对企业产生的垂直溢出效应，以及交易成本在该作用路径中的中介机制。研究发现：①风险投资通过强化产业链上下游供需耦合与价值传导，驱动生产要素在产业关联企业间实现更优配置，显著提升关联企业全要素生产率，由此形成风险投资的垂直溢出效应；②风险投资垂直溢出效应通过重构产业链交易关系，显著削弱上下游企业交易成本，促进全要素生产率提升，构成垂直溢出效应的重要作用路径。

In order to enhance the quality of production factors and optimizing resource allocation efficiency, China has been implementing an innovation-driven development strategy and endeavoring to cultivate strategic emerging industries.In this context, the strategic value of venture capital (VC) has become increasingly prominent, showing a trend toward scale and specialization.However, most VC focuses solely on direct investment effects and overlooks its indirect value through industrial chain transmission, such as technology diffusion, management demonstration, and market linkage.While existing research largely concentrates on the direct empowerment of venture capital for invested enterprises, its spillover effects in vertical industrial chains remain underexplored.
Thus, this study investigates whether VC can generate vertical spillover effects along industrial value chains, and through what mechanisms these effects unfold.It focuses on the role of VC in optimizing resource allocation and enhancing productivity in both recipient firms and their upstream suppliers and downstream customers.This study aims to explore whether VC intensity in upstream and downstream industries improves firms′ total factor productivity (TFP) and to what extent this relationship is mediated by reductions in transaction costs.
To address these questions, the study assembles an unbalanced panel dataset comprising 21 538 firm-year observations, covering all non-financial, non-ST A-share listed companies in China from 2013 to 2022.Firm-level TFP is estimated via the Levinsohn-Petrin (LP) semi-parametric approach, with alternative measures from Olley-Pakes (OP) and ordinary least squares (OLS) used for robustness.Upstream and downstream VC intensity indices are constructed by combining the proportion of VC-backed shareholding among the top ten shareholders in each firm with industry input-output coefficients drawn from the 2017 Input-Output Tables.This weighted scheme captures the strength of VC penetration along both forward (supplier to buyer) and backward (buyer to supplier) linkages.Control variables include firm age, size, ownership type, leverage, profitability, equity concentration, and human capital; year and province fixed effects address unobserved time and regional heterogeneity.The study employs panel fixed-effects regressions, dynamic (lagged) specifications, instrumental-variables two-stage least squares, and a series of robustness checks,including alternative spillover measures, sample period exclusions, and endogeneity tests to ensure result validity.
The empirical analysis yields four main findings.First, higher VC intensity in upstream industries significantly raises downstream firms′ TFP (H1), and conversely, stronger VC presence in downstream industries boosts upstream firms′ productivity (H2).Coefficient estimates remain positive and statistically significant at the 1% level across contemporaneous and lagged specifications, underscoring a durable vertical spillover effect.Second, the study documents a clear mediating role for transaction costs,which is measured as the ratio of selling, administrative, and financial expenses to revenue through a three-step causal mediation framework.Upstream and downstream VC intensity both reduce firms′ transaction costs (in significant negative associations), and these cost savings, in turn, substantially elevate TFP (H3 and H4).The findings are robust across a variety of sensitivity analyses.Specifically, the study substitutes alternative spillover indices based on the share of VC-backed firms in each industry, employs TFP measures derived from both the Olley-Pakes (OP) and ordinary least squares (OLS) methods, and restricts the sample to pre-COVID years.The results remain consistent under these varied conditions.Fourth, addressing potential endogeneity via province-exclusion instruments confirms that the observed spillovers are not driven by omitted regional or industry factors.
This study makes several contributions.Methodologically, it pioneers the integration of industry input-output analysis with firm-level TFP estimation to quantify VC-induced vertical spillovers.Theoretically, it extends the resource-based and transaction-cost perspectives by demonstrating how equity financing and governance improvements propagate benefits beyond direct investees, altering the production network′s efficiency landscape.In practical terms, the findings underscore the systemic value of venture capital (VC).By enhancing the alignment between supply and demand and streamlining transactional relationships, VC drives a Pareto improvement in resource allocation across the entire value chain.Policymakers should thus recognize VC not only as a catalyst for high-growth startups but also as a lever for upgrading industrial ecosystems.For VC practitioners, deepening engagement with portfolio firms′ upstream and downstream partners can amplify returns through network-wide productivity gains.