Firm-level human capital and innovation: evidence from China

This thesis examines firm innovation in China from firm-level human capital per- spective since resource-based theory and upper echelon theory reveal that the reason why firms vary in performance is that they differ in human capital. Two types of human capital are examined: general human capital measured by number of highly educated workers, and managerial human capital measured by characteristics (edu- cation and age) of general manager and management team. Besides human capital indicators, we also take R&D, firm size, market structure, firm age, ownership, city fixed effects, and industry fixed effects into account. Given the fact that innovations are made up of multifarious elements and hard to measure and define, this thesis examines firm innovation from three different aspects, patent applications, product innovation and total factor productivity.Ph.D