Lianfa Luo • Zhiming Cheng •Qingqing Ye• Yanjun Cheng • Russell Smyth• Zhiqing Yang• Le Zhang

Abstract：

We use the short-lived, but high-profile,  China Top Brand Award to examine the causal effects of  nonmonetary awards on firm  innovation.  To do so, we create  a  panel dataset  by matching  official China Top Brand  Award recipients  to the innovation outputs of  listed companies .  Results from difference-in-differences estimates show that firms that received the China Top Brand Award have a higher number, and better quality , of  filed patents. We find that the  positive effects of  winning  the  China Top Brand  Award  on innovation outputs operate  through higher government subsidies to winning firms. We also find that the positive effects of award-winning are stronger among state-owned enterprises, larger enterprises, and better-performing enterprises, as well as in provinces with stronger intellectual property rights protection. Our results are robust to a series of sensitivity checks.