Recently, an article of IQDS titled “Impact of Rising Labor Costs on the Enterprises Innovation of Different Sizes ——Empirical Evidence from CEES”, written by Cheng Hong and Tang Ting, has been published in Science and Technology Progress and Policy (2016, No. 23). This is another research paper based on the data of China Employer-Employee Survey (CEES). Since 2016, more than 50 research papers have been published in CSSIC or above level journals.
In this paper, it is pointed out that in the context of rising labor costs, research on the innovation behavior of enterprises contributes to a deeper understanding of the practical difficulties faced by enterprises undergoing transformation and upgrading in the context of rising labor costs and the path selections of the enterprises in the new normal. Based on the empirical analysis of large-sample data, it is found that impact of rising labor costs on the enterprise innovation behavior varies significantly between enterprises of different sizes: innovation obviously accelerates in large-sized enterprises and innovation of small-and-medium-sized enterprises hasn’t been detected any significant change. Further analysis indicates that, lack of skilled labor, insufficient investment in vocational training and weak innovation capital base are the main reasons why SMEs failed to speed up innovation.