This paper explores the role of business environment reforms in enhancing innovation and the productivity performance of individual firms in transition economies. Using a large sample of firm-level data from the Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey (BEEPS V round) across 28 transition economies, this paper examines the link between business environment reforms and firm R&D and innovation and productivity performance within a unified structural model. In this paper, we utilize a novel approach to measure business environment reforms. As a basis for constructing a business environment reforms (BER) index, we use subjective valuations of the constraints facing firms for doing businesses vis-à-vis various dimensions of the business environment. The index is calculated as a difference between the aggregated mean scores for innovator and non-innovator firms (by country and size of locality). The lower the difference, the better the business environment is in terms of providing firms with more stimulus to invest in innovations. The estimates of the structural model proved our hypothesis on the impact of business environment reforms on the relationships between R&D investments, innovation and labor productivity. We found strong support for the impact of the BER index on the intensity of R&D and innovation as well as on labor productivity. This paper supports the early findings that R&D is an important determinant of innovation and that innovation is a driver of labor productivity. However, our outcomes show that the patterns of the influence on a firm’s performance differ across the various dimensions of the business environment.

本文探讨了商业环境改革在增强转型经济中单个公司的创新和生产率绩效中的作用。使用来自业务环境和企业绩效调查的大量公司级数据样本在28个转轨经济体中进行（BEEPS V轮），本文在统一的结构模型中研究了商业环境改革与公司研发与创新和生产力绩效之间的联系。在本文中，我们利用一种新颖的方法来衡量商业环境的改革。作为构建业务环境改革（BER）指数的基础，我们使用主观评估企业面对业务环境的各个维度时所面临的约束。该指数计算为创新者和非创新者公司的平均得分总和之间的差异（按国家和地区大小）。差异越小，就可以为企业提供更多刺激创新的投资机会，商业环境就越好。结构模型的估计证明了我们关于商业环境改革对研发投资，创新与劳动生产率之间关系的影响的假设。我们发现，BER指数对研发和创新强度以及劳动生产率的影响得到了强有力的支持。本文支持早期发现，即研发是创新的重要决定因素，而创新是劳动生产率的驱动力。但是，我们的结果表明，对公司绩效的影响方式在商业环境的各个方面都不同。D和创新以及劳动生产率。本文支持早期发现，即研发是创新的重要决定因素，而创新是劳动生产率的驱动力。但是，我们的结果表明，对企业绩效的影响方式在商业环境的各个方面都不同。D和创新以及劳动生产率。本文支持早期发现，即研发是创新的重要决定因素，而创新是劳动生产率的驱动力。但是，我们的结果表明，对公司绩效的影响方式在商业环境的各个方面都不同。