The impact of market integration on the technological innovation of new energy vehicle enterprises

How to give full play to the innovation incentive role of the unified market for new energy vehicle (NEV) enterprises is an issue that deserves high attention in the development of China's NEV industry. Selecting listed enterprises of NEV manufacturers in China from 2010 to 2020 as the research sample, this study distinguishes the technological innovation into two categories: basic innovation and commercial innovation, and constructs market integration indicators from market consolidation and regional linkage, so as to analyze how the construction of a national unified market will affect the technological innovation of the NEV industry. Besides, it also takes into account the moderating effects of two types of non-market institutional innovations. The results show that it is difficult to promote critical core technology breakthroughs by relying on market system innovation alone. While actively promoting the construction of a unified market, it is important to bring into play the interactive synergy between government support policies, enterprise R&D investment, and market integration. Furthermore, this study confirms that the impact of market integration on technological innovation of NEV enterprises exists in the form of regional boundaries, dynamic effects, and two types of transmission mechanisms, namely, efficient market and active government.