Abstract: The firms don’t only rely on the capacity construction, such as the R&D behavior for innovation, but also seeking for outside help, that is rent-seeking, in the transitional economy. The research investigates the relationship between the corrupt practices and the R&D investment through the data provided by the World Bank, we measure the corrupt practices through the entertainment costs of firms. The results show that a significance positive relationship exists .We have consider the endogenous problem and an instrument variable regression is selected to make sure the result is robust enough. However, the result doesn’t mean that a positive promotion of corruption to the innovation of firms, on the contrary, strengthening the monitoring of power, perfecting the construction of innovation system and creating a fair and transparent business environment is critical to improve the innovation ability of firms.

摘要： 转型经济体中，企业不仅会依赖于对内的能力建设，如研发创新行为，也会寻求外部帮助，如寻租腐败活动。在此背景下，利用世界银行提供的中国企业调查数据，实证分析了企业腐败支出与其研发投入之间的关系，其中的腐败活动以企业招待差旅费近似刻画。研究结果表明，企业的寻租腐败活动显著地提高了其研发投入。在考虑内生性问题后，这一结论仍然成立。然而，这并不意味着企业寻租腐败活动对其研发投入的积极作用。相反，研究结论正好直击我国市场制度的缺失所带来的“腐败悖论”。因此，加强对公权力的监督、完善创新制度建设，构建公平竞争的营商环境，对提高我国企业研发创新能力具有重要现实意义。