Evaluación de impacto de las políticas de incentivo a la actividad innovadora en el sector industrial uruguayo

Government efforts to promote innovation require the evaluation of public policies. In this paper, we make an impact evaluation of public support on key variables such as labor productivity, exports, spending on innovation activities, among others. Also, we evaluate the impact of such support differentiating activities between endogenous and exogenous innovation. To do this, we use Propensity Score Matching method which allows us to estimate with some confidence the average difference of the outcome variables comparing between financed companies and a control group of not financed companies, controlling by observable characteristics. In fact, we found that public support significantly improved the performance of financed firms compared to those who did not receive public support. In particular, the impact was greater on exogenous innovation activities. However, these results must be nuanced by the fact that between the period 2007-2009 and 2010-2012 the number of companies that carried out innovation activities declined, which may indicate a selection bias. Finally, we note that the heterogeneity of public financing instruments analyzed can affect the results obtained with respect to the scope of innovation policies and results obtained, as some instruments do not primarily aim to promote innovation.