Using a large sample of 4,545 US firms over the period 1968–2018, we find robust and significant positive peer effects on corporate innovation. Consistent with the need to keep ahead or abreast of rivals, we document an increase in peer firms’ influence with product market competition. Our further analyses show interesting leader–follower interactions with firms following or adopting innovation policies of counterparts perceived or likely to have superior information. This finding supports the information-based motives of mimicking. More importantly, we show that adopting peers’ innovation policies is associated with improvements in long-term innovation outputs and product market performance. Our results suggest that peer effects are a critical determinant of corporate innovation in addition to other factors examined so far in the literature.

使用 1968 年至 2018 年期间 4,545 家美国公司的大量样本，我们发现对企业创新的强大而显着的积极同行效应。与保持领先或与竞争对手并驾齐驱的需要一致，我们记录了同行企业对产品市场竞争的影响力的增加。我们的进一步分析显示了有趣的领导者-追随者与遵循或采用被认为或可能拥有高级信息的同行的创新政策的公司的互动。这一发现支持了基于信息的模仿动机。更重要的是，我们表明采用同行的创新政策与长期创新产出和产品市场表现的改善有关。我们的研究结果表明，除了目前文献中研究的其他因素之外，同伴效应是企业创新的关键决定因素。