Abstract: Equipment investment including key technologies is the key to break the technical barriers, speed up the technology development cycle, and realize the “overtaking” in the manufacturing industry. This paper theoretically analyzes the degree and path of the impact of equipment investment in the technology life cycle on the total factor productivity of enterprises, and empirically tests the heterogeneity of the impact by selecting the data of A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets from 2009 to 2018.The results show that: equipment investment can generally improve the total factor productivity of enterprises, and the promotion effect of low technology maturity enterprises is greater than that of high technology maturity enterprises; equipment investment has a significant promotion effect on process innovation, but has no significantly positive effect on product innovation, even has inhibitory effect; low technology maturity enterprises promote product innovation through equipment investment, and enhance enterprise′s overall importance, however, high-tech mature enterprises tend to invest in process equipment to improve total factor productivity.Therefore, enterprises should pay attention to the influence of technology development stage on enterprise investment decision, formulate reasonable investment strategy and innovation path according to their own technology development situation, and appropriately accumulate capital.

Key words: technology life cycle, equipment investment;product innovation;total factor productivity