Does the Specialized, Refined, Differentiated, and Innovative “Little Giants” Certification Policy Promote the Innovation of Firms?

This study provides the first systematic evaluation of China’s Specialized, Refined, Differential, and Innovative (SRDI) “Little Giant” certification policy’s impact on corporate innovation, employing a multi-period difference-in-differences (DID) design using A-share listed firm data from 2016 to 2022. Three key findings are identified: First, SRDI policy significantly enhanced corporate innovation, with results that were robust to multiple specification tests. Second, mechanism analysis revealed this effect operated through dual channels - explicit channels including financial support and implicit channels including digital transformation. Third, the policy demonstrated stronger effects for NSOEs, technologically advanced firms, and those in highly marketized regions. Beyond providing systematic evidence of SRDI’s innovation effects, this study contributed an original explicit-implicit dual-channel framework for policy evaluation.