The impact of macro-regional environment on the enterprise R&D efficiency—An empirical study based on hierarchical linear model

Using micro level data of Chinese industrial listed companies in 2004-2012 and macro level data of 30 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions, we applied the stochastic frontier model and the hierarchical linear model to empirically test the impact of the regional environment on enterprise R&D efficiency, and draw the following conclusions: the research and development activities of enterprise are in a hierarchical, open environment, and there exist level differences between regional environment and internal enterprise environment, also the two kinds of environments are nested relationship; regional economic environment, regional market environment and regional technical environment all play positive regulatory role for the internal enterprise environment of R&D; the macro-regional environmental factors such as per capita GDP, market index, government spending on technology and the number of colleges and universities have significant regulatory role on the internal enterprise environmental factors.