4.2.1. Industrial Chain Perspective

This study divided enterprises into upstream, midstream, and downstream industries according to the industrial chain. Table 11 shows the regression results of the impact of government subsidies on the quantity of the enterprises' technological innovation in all links of the industrial chain. The results show that increasing government subsidies can increase the technological innovation across the entire industrial chain.

To test whether there was a difference in the significant impact of government subsidies on upstream, midstream, and downstream enterprises, we conducted an inter-group coefficient difference test. First, we set the dummy variables *chain*1, *chain*2, and *chain*3. The dummy variable *chain*1 is 1 when the enterprise belongs to the upstream, otherwise it is 0. The dummy variable *chain*2 is 1 when the enterprise belongs to the midstream, otherwise it is 0. The dummy variable *chain*3 is 1 when the enterprise belongs downstream, otherwise it is 0. Second, we multiplied the three dummy variables with the main independent variable (*sub*) to form the interactive terms *sub*\_*chain*1, *sub*\_*chain*2, and *sub*\_*chain*3. Third, we set the three interactive terms in Model (1) for regression. The results are presented in Table 12. When government subsidies increased, Panel A shows that upstream enterprises applied for more utility model patents than the other links. Panel B shows that although the quantity of technological innovation in midstream enterprises increased, it was significantly less than the upstream and downstream enterprises. Panel C shows that compared to other links, downstream enterprises applied for more invention patents. Overall, government subsidies can promote technological innovation across the entire industrial chain. The

number of invention patents of downstream enterprises increased the most, while the number of utility model patents of the upstream enterprises increased the most.


**Table 11.** Heterogeneity analysis: Industrial chain perspective (quantity of technological innovation).

Note: Robust standard errors are given in parentheses. \* *p* < 0.1, \*\* *p* < 0.05, \*\*\* *p* < 0.01. CONTROLS includes capital structure (*lev*), profitability (*roa*), enterprise size (*size*), proportion of fixed assets (*ppe*), proportion of independent directors (*dir*), enterprise age (*age*), enterprise growth ability (*gov*), and human capital (*hc*).

**Table 12.** Heterogeneity analysis: Comparison of inter-group coefficients of the industrial chain perspective (quantity of technological innovation).


Note: Robust standard errors are given in parentheses. \* *p* < 0.1, \*\* *p* < 0.05, \*\*\* *p* < 0.01. CONTROLS includes capital structure (*lev*), profitability (*roa*), enterprise size (*size*), proportion of fixed assets (*ppe*), proportion of independent directors (*dir*), enterprise age (*age*), enterprise growth ability (*gov*), and human capital (*hc*).

Table 13 shows the impact of government subsidies on the quality of the enterprises' technological innovation in all links of the industrial chain. The results showed that government subsidies had a significant positive impact only on the quality of the utility model patents of upstream enterprises. This shows that government subsidies can improve the quality of the technological innovation of upstream enterprises, but are limited in terms of the quality of utility model patents, and have no impact on the quality of invention patents.


**Table 13.** Heterogeneity analysis: Industrial chain perspective (quality of technological innovation).

Note: Robust standard errors are given in parentheses. \* *p* < 0.1, \*\* *p* < 0.05, \*\*\* *p* < 0.01. CONTROLS includes capital structure (*lev*), profitability (*roa*), enterprise size (*size*), proportion of fixed assets (*ppe*), proportion of independent directors (*dir*), enterprise age (*age*), enterprise growth ability (*gov*), and human capital (*hc*).

#### 4.2.2. Enterprise Size Perspective

Enterprises are divided into large and small enterprises according to their scale. Table 14 shows the impact of government subsidies on the technological innovation of enterprises of different sizes. Panels A and B show the regression results for large and small enterprises. The results show that an increase in government subsidies had a significantly positive impact on the quantity of technological innovation in large and small enterprises. To further analyze the difference between the two significant effects, an intergroup coefficient test was conducted. We set the dummy variable *size*1. When the enterprise is large-scale, it is 1; otherwise, it is 0. Then, the dummy variable *size*1 was multiplied by the main independent variable (*sub*) to form the interaction term *sub*\_*size*1, and Model (1) was added for regression (see Panel C for the results). The results show that compared to small enterprises, large enterprises can apply for more invention patents after receiving government subsidies. There are two possible reasons for this finding. First, large enterprises have a wider and better internal division of labor and a stronger ability to use R&D networks and knowledge spillovers, which is more conducive to technological innovation. Second, from the perspective of enterprise strategic objectives, large enterprises pay more attention to long-term returns, so they have a stronger willingness to engage in technological innovation activities.

Table 15 shows the impact of government subsidies on the technological innovation quality of enterprises of different sizes. The results show that government subsidies had no significant impact on the quality of the technological innovation of enterprises of different sizes. This proves that the result of benchmark regression is robust. Overall, increasing government subsidies is significantly effective in increasing the technological innovation of large and small enterprises, especially for large-scale enterprises. However, the enterprise size heterogeneity does not significantly affect the effect of government subsidies on the technological innovation quality.


**Table 14.** Heterogeneity analysis: Enterprise size perspective (quantity of technological innovation).

Note: Robust standard errors are given in parentheses. \* *p* < 0.1, \*\* *p* < 0.05, \*\*\* *p* < 0.01. CONTROLS in all models includes capital structure (*lev*), profitability (*roa*), proportion of fixed assets (*ppe*), proportion of independent directors (*dir*), enterprise age (*age*), enterprise growth ability (*gov*), and enterprise human capital (*hc*).



Note: Robust standard errors are given in parentheses. \* *p* < 0.1, \*\* *p* < 0.05, \*\*\* *p* < 0.01. CONTROLS in all models includes capital structure (*lev*), profitability (*roa*), proportion of fixed assets (*ppe*), proportion of independent directors (*dir*), enterprise age (*age*), enterprise growth ability (*gov*), and enterprise human capital (*hc*).

#### **5. Conclusions and Policy Implications**

Against the background of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals, the new energy vehicle industry is a strategic emerging industry with huge social and economic benefits, and needs reasonable guidance through industrial policies. Technological innovation is the fundamental driving force to promote the high-quality development of the new energy vehicle industry and is an important way to advance the low-carbon transformation of energy. Taking the listed enterprises in the new energy vehicle industry from 2010 to 2019 as the research sample, this study compared the patent data of the Incopat database with the financial data of enterprises in the Wind and CSMAR databases. The quantity of technological innovation was measured by the number of patents, and the quality of technological innovation was measured by the width of patent knowledge. The fixed effects model was used to empirically test the impact of government subsidies on the quantity and quality of technological innovation and the internal impact mechanism.

The conclusions are as follows. (1) The government subsidy only encouraged the quantity of technological innovation in the new energy vehicle industry, but had no incentive effect on the quality of technological innovation. (2) There are three mechanisms for government subsidies to promote the quantity of technological innovations in the new energy automobile industry. First, as an approval from the government, the government subsidy can increase the enterprises' credibility in the market. Second, government subsidies can encourage enterprises to increase their R&D capital investment. Third, government subsidies can mitigate the financing constraints in technological innovation. (3) Government subsidies can only materially improve the quality of the utility model patents of upstream enterprises.

The policy implications of this study are as follows. (1) Optimizing the government subsidy policy system for the new energy vehicle industry. First, the selection mechanism for subsidy objects should be improved. We should strengthen the fairness and openness of the selection of subsidy objects and provide a competitive environment for enterprises. Second, the subsidy effect evaluation mechanism should be improved, the traditional innovation evaluation system based on the number of innovations should be abandoned, and the inspection of enterprise innovation quality should be strengthened. (2) Formulating differentiated subsidy incentive policies. When the government grants subsidies, it is necessary to fully consider the heterogeneity factors such as the location of the industrial chain and the size of enterprises. The government should promote differentiated incentive policies according to local conditions and improve the allocation efficiency of government subsidy funds. The government should further improve the incentive effect of technological innovation for midstream and downstream enterprises in the new energy vehicle industry chain. For upstream enterprises of the new energy vehicle industrial chain, the incentives of invention patents and high-quality innovation should be emphasized. At the same time, the government should enhance the incentive effect of industrial policies on the technological innovation output of small- and medium-sized enterprises.

There are still some limitations in this study. As above-mentioned, the purpose, object and strength of the industrial policies of the new energy vehicle industry are different. This study failed to distinguish the heterogeneity of the effects of the supply and demand side on subsidy policies. There are many kinds of government subsidies related to China's new energy vehicle industry, but it is difficult to obtain the details of each subsidy received by enterprises from the financial data of listed companies. This is the difficulty and direction of future research.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, H.L. and H.Q.; Methodology, H.C. and H.Q.; Software, H.Q. and H.L.; Formal analysis, H.L. and H.Q.; Resources, H.C.; Data curation, H.Q. and H.L.; Writingoriginal draft preparation, H.Q. and H.L.; Writing-review and editing, H.L. and H.C.; Supervision, H.C. and L.Y. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research was funded by the National Social Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 22BJY059), the Natural Science Foundation of Hunan Province (Grant No. 2021JJ3045), and the Postgraduate Scientific Research Innovation Project of Hunan Province (Grant No. QL20210122).

**Data Availability Statement:** Not applicable.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
