Research On The Evaluation Of R&D Efficiency Of Listed Companies In Lithium Battery Industry

Promoting the development of the lithium battery industry has been a key aspect of China’s energy policy to achieve carbon neutrality.Through a series of policy support,the scale of China’s lithium battery industry has ranked first in the world.However,in terms of R&D and technological progress,China still lags behind countries with better developed lithium battery industry in the world,such as South Korea and Japan,and its dependence on imports and lack of mastery of core technologies have become the main obstacles to its development.In order to alleviate this situation and improve the overall R&D efficiency of China’s lithium battery industry,it is necessary to conduct a comprehensive and systematic evaluation of the R&D efficiency of listed companies in China’s lithium battery industry and understand the main reasons for the low level of R&D efficiency and the direction of improvement.For this purpose,this paper firstly conducts a statistical analysis of the R&D status of listed companies in the lithium battery industry.Secondly,by comparing and analyzing the traditional data envelopment analysis model and the improved data envelopment analysis model,we decided to adopt the econometric research method of three-stage DEA model and Malmquist index model and construct the R&D efficiency index system.Finally,using the data of 22 listed companies in the lithium battery industry from 2012-2021,the R&D efficiency of listed companies in the lithium battery industry is analyzed empirically from two dimensions,static and dynamic,respectively.The results of the empirical analysis show that after the adjustment of the stochastic frontier analysis model,the mean values of comprehensive technical efficiency,pure technical efficiency and scale efficiency of listed companies in the lithium battery industry have increased compared with the first stage,corresponding to 0.642,0.789 and 0.816,which shows that the level of comprehensive technical efficiency needs to be improved,and the improvement of pure technical efficiency is the key to improve R&D efficiency.In addition,the number of enterprises with increasing returns to scale increases and accounts for the majority of all enterprises,indicating that lithium battery enterprises can also improve their R&D efficiency by moderately expanding their scale.From the annual change of total factor productivity,the annual average total factor productivity of listed companies in China’s lithium battery industry decreases by 5.1%from 2012 to 2021,and the overall productivity level of lithium battery industry decreases.From the total factor productivity decomposition,the decline in technology level is the main reason for the decline in total factor productivity.Based on the breakdown of enterprise groups,the highest mean value of comprehensive technical efficiency during the 10-year period is for lithium raw material listed companies and the lowest is for diaphragm listed companies.The highest mean value of total factor productivity change index is for the listed companies of diaphragm and the lowest is for the listed companies of negative electrode materials.Based on the results of comparison and empirical analysis,this paper proposes suggestions and countermeasures to the government and enterprise managers respectively.The suggestions to the government are to improve relevant policies to encourage innovation in lithium battery enterprises;to create a favorable environment for technological progress;to attach importance to the development of leading enterprises and to guide and encourage cooperation among lithium battery enterprises.The suggestions for enterprise managers are to increase innovation;to appropriately expand the scale of enterprises and to strengthen cooperation with other enterprises.