The Research and Postgraduate Centre congratulates Asst. Prof. Dr. Dai Bochuan from the School of Economics and Management on his recent publication in the Journal of Comparative Economics, a peer-reviewed SSCI Q1 journal with a current impact factor of 3.8.

First-authored by Asst. Prof. Dr. Dai, the research includes collaborative contributions from Assoc. Prof. Dr. George Chao Ma and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tao Shen of Tsinghua University, China.

The research article, titled "Intellectual property rights protection and firm innovation: Evidence from half million firms in China", examines the impact of intellectual property rights (IPR) protection on innovation among local private firms. 

Using the implementation of local patent dispute jurisdiction in China as exogenous shocks, the study finds that private firms in cities with such jurisdiction exhibit significantly higher patenting activity compared to those in cities without local jurisdiction. Consistent with the hypotheses, the effect is more pronounced in cities with greater cultural disparity from their provincial capitals and in cities with stronger judicial environments. The study further provides evidence that access to capital, innovation efficiency, city development, and industry competition influence the effect of local IPR protection in expected ways. Overall, the paper highlights the importance of proximity and accessibility to local patent dispute jurisdiction in promoting private firm innovation in China.

The full article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jce.2025.07.003

Asst. Prof. Dr. Dai is an Assistant Professor at the School of Economics and Management, Xiamen University Malaysia, and an Adjunct Research Fellow at the Center for Global Trade and Industrial Competitiveness at Tsinghua University. His research interests include firm innovation, trading strategies, and applications of large language models (LLMs) in financial analysis.