Competition and Innovation in the Financial Sector: Evidence from the Rise of FinTech Start-ups
研究了2000-2016年间金融科技初创企业的兴起如何影响传统金融机构的创新意愿，发现来自金融业外部的竞争压力会促使现有金融企业增加创新活动。
Abstract This paper provides new evidence on the effects of entry on incumbents’ incentives to innovate by examining the rise of FinTech innovations over the period 2000-2016. We employ machine learning algorithms to classify a large sample of patent applications into five types of FinTech innovations. We then show that greater competition from innovators outside the financial sector increases the probability that incumbent financial firms will innovate. Our identification strategy exploits the variation over time in the share of FinTech patent applications by non-financial start-ups relative to incumbent financial firms, as a proxy for competitive pressures from outside the financial industry. We also find that this increased competition results in a higher number of FinTech patent applications by financial incumbents relative to non-financial ones, especially when the FinTech innovations are more important, as proxied by the number of their future patent citations.