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| The Innovation-Driving Effect of Insurance Funds’ Market Entry: A Perspective on Fostering Patient Capital |
| WANG Xiuhua, LIANG Zhongqi, LIU Jinhua
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| College of Finance and Statistics, Hunan University; School of Economics, Anhui University |
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Abstract Technological innovation is characterized by high risks, long cycles, and substantial sunk costs, which creates a natural mismatch with the short-term return orientation of traditional financial capital. In the context of accelerating high-level technological self-reliance, cultivating patient capital capable of traversing economic cycles and tolerating short-term trial-and-error has emerged as a critical strategic imperative. Characterized by large scale, long liability duration, and strong stability, insurance funds possess the intrinsic endowments to serve as patient capital. This paper investigates whether the market entry of insurance funds can exert their patient capital attributes to effectively drive substantive corporate innovation and explores the underlying mechanisms. Using the sample of A-share listed firms in China from 2005 to 2024, this study conducts systematic empirical tests with a two-way fixed effects model.
The results indicate that the market entry of insurance funds significantly enhances corporate innovation output. More importantly, this driving effect primarily manifests in promoting substantive innovation with high knowledge spillovers and technological barriers, rather than inducing firms to engage in low-quality strategic innovation to policy catering. Regarding micro-transmission mechanisms, insurance funds construct a three-dimensional pathway through resource allocation, market signaling, and failure tolerance. Specifically, the resource effect broadens direct financing channels and optimizes the credit maturity structure, thereby alleviating long-term financial constraints. The signal effect mitigates market volatility and boosts corporate valuation by acting as a market stabilizer and value certifier, which consequently reduces the information friction costs of external financing. The insurance effect mitigates executive career concerns by reducing the sensitivity of compensation and turnover to short-term performance, providing institutional guarantees for risk-taking.
Group analysis further reveals that the innovation-driving effect of insurance funds is more pronounced in firms with higher R&D investments, smaller market shares, and those in their growth or maturity stages. Furthermore, additional analyses find that facing the high sunk costs of key core technology research and development, insurance funds enable firms to undertake more disruptive and original innovations in key digital technologies, serving as a vital force in helping firms overcome technological bottlenecks.
The marginal contributions of this paper are reflected in three dimensions. First, from a theoretical perspective, aligning with the policy imperative of fostering patient capital, this paper provides a novel theoretical interpretation of the patient capital attributes of insurance funds, thereby expanding the research horizon of science and technology finance. Second, regarding the mechanisms, this study disentangles how insurance funds empower innovation, confirming its operation through a three-dimensional pathway of resource, signal, and insurance effects. Third, in terms of empirical evidence, this paper refines the structural characteristics of innovation output and reveals the unique value of insurance funds in driving substantive innovation and breakthroughs in key digital technologies.
Based on these findings, this paper proposes a series of policy implications. Regulatory authorities should further optimize the institutional environment to accommodate the characteristics of long-term capital, comprehensively promote long-cycle performance assessment mechanisms, and refine solvency regulatory rules. Concurrently, insurance asset management institutions should be encouraged to establish specialized products focusing on key core technologies and to explore a comprehensive service model combining equity investment and technology insurance. In addition, insurance funds should be guided to actively participate in corporate governance to foster internal incentive systems that tolerate failure. Policies also need to support insurance funds in broadening investment channels in early-stage and hard-technology sectors. While persisting in guiding long-term market entry, penetrative supervision must be strengthened to prevent short-term speculative risks.
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Received: 17 December 2025
Published: 06 August 2026
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