本文的目的在于详细论述一种理论来解释为什么向市场经济的转型会带来更高水平的创新。市场化提高了经济行为体相对于政治行为体的力量,加剧了企业之间的竞争,为企业家创造了新的机会,因而也激励了创新活动。在经验性地应用该理论时,我们集中关注了中国的转型经济,它为我们提供了广泛的制度环境来考察市场转型与企业家及其企业所开展的日益增多的创新活动之间的关系。 The purpose of this paper is to elaborate on a theory that explains why a transition to a market economy leads to a higher level of innovation. Marketization has increased the power of economic actors relative to political actors, exacerbated competition among firms and created new opportunities for entrepreneurs, thus stimulating innovation activities. When applying this theory empirically, we focus on China’s transitional economy and provide us with a broad institutional environment to examine the relationship between market transformation and the increasing number of innovations that entrepreneurs and their firms carry out.