Research On The Impact Of Environmental Regulation On Innovation Efficiency Of Enterprises

Since the reform and opening up,China’s economy has continued to grow,and its economic volume has been in the forefront of the world.As an important driving force to promote economic development,innovation plays an important role in the process of China’s economic and social transformation and upgrading.The government has constantly issued relevant preferential policies to support enterprise innovation activities.At the same time,due to the excessive use of natural resources by human activities in the early stage of development,it has caused immeasurable serious consequences to China’s natural environment.With the increasingly serious environmental problems,the government began to introduce environmental regulation policies in order to improve the natural environment.On the one hand,environmental regulation is implemented to solve environmental problems;on the other hand,government R&D investment policy is implemented to promote scientific and technological innovation.The innovation environment faced by Chinese enterprises is becoming more and more complex.Therefore,it is of great significance for China to adjust government R&D investment,improve environmental protection policy system and build a good innovation environment by analyzing how the innovation efficiency of Chinese enterprises will be affected by environmental regulations and the role of Government R&D investment.In order to study the relationship among environmental regulation,government R&D investment and innovation efficiency of enterprises,this study first collected relevant data of regulated industrial enterprises in China,and analyzed the environmental regulation and Government R&D investment in recent years.Secondly,by constructing the index system of enterprise innovation efficiency,this paper used DEA model to measure and analyze the enterprise innovation efficiency of provinces in China.Then,through theoretical analysis of the response of clean and non-clean innovation activities to environmental regulation under the effect of Government R&D investment,this paper made hypotheses on the change of enterprise innovation efficiency with the different intensity of environmental regulation.Finally,this paper empirically tested the hypothesis by constructing the threshold effect model,taking the Government R&D investment as the threshold variable,and taking the internal expenditure of R&D funds and the full-time equivalent of R&D personnel as the control variables,analyzed the impact of environmental regulation intensity on enterprise innovation efficiency from the national level and the three regions of East,Central and West China.The results show that,in the national level and the central region samples,the impact of environmental regulation on enterprise innovation efficiency does not exist the threshold of Government R&D investment,but there is a single threshold effect in the eastern and western regions.The eastern region has a high economic level,when the Government R&D investment is low,the impetus to enterprise innovation R&D is small,so the promotion effect of environmental regulation on enterprise innovation efficiency is also small;When the Government R&D investment exceeds the threshold,enterprises have enough power to carry out innovation R&D,and the promotion effect of environmental regulation on enterprise innovation efficiency increases significantly.The empirical results of the eastern region verified the hypothesis of this study.The economic level of the western region is low,and the importance of innovation is not enough,therefore,environmental regulation has more inhibitory effect on enterprise innovation efficiency.Before the Government R&D investment crosses the threshold,the inhibition effect is strong;when the Government R&D investment exceeds the threshold value,the inhibition of environmental regulation on enterprise innovation efficiency will be reduced to a certain extent,but it will not be completely eliminated.The empirical results of the western region are different from the hypotheses of this study,but it verifies that government R&D investment has a positive impact on the relationship between environmental regulation and enterprise innovation efficiency.In order to provide a good innovation environment for Chinese enterprises and continue to carry out innovation activities under the background of more stringent environmental regulations,this study puts forward the following policy suggestions: enrich the content of Government R&D investment policy,increase government R&D investment,coordinate environmental regulation and enterprise innovation efficiency;adjust the intensity of environmental regulation in different regions to play a positive screening role;strengthen the innovation and R&D ability of enterprises,improve the innovation consciousness of enterprises,and promote the realization of green transformation and upgrading of enterprises.