IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jpolmo/v30y2008i3p381-399.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The effects of grant policy on technology investment in Italy

Author

Listed:
  • Atzeni, Gianfranco E.
  • Carboni, Oliviero A.

Abstract

This paper investigates the effect of subsidies on the adoption of information and communication technology in Italy. We argue that the important geographical differences between North and South Italy are something that public policy should be concerned of. A matching estimator is used to explore the effects of financial assistance, by comparing the granted with non-granted firms. Our results suggest that public assistance has positive effects on ICT adoption. We also find that firms in the South are more dependent on public grants, and that duality would be more pronounced if subsidies were not given. Furthermore, because firms prefer traditional rather than ICT investment, subsidies should be specifically ICT oriented.

Suggested Citation

  • Atzeni, Gianfranco E. & Carboni, Oliviero A., 2008. "The effects of grant policy on technology investment in Italy," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 381-399.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jpolmo:v:30:y:2008:i:3:p:381-399
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0161-8938(08)00002-1
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. A. Smith, Jeffrey & E. Todd, Petra, 2005. "Does matching overcome LaLonde's critique of nonexperimental estimators?," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 125(1-2), pages 305-353.
    2. Atzeni, Gianfranco E. & Carboni, Oliviero A., 2006. "ICT productivity and firm propensity to innovative investment: Evidence from Italian microdata," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 139-156, June.
    3. Hollenstein, Heinz, 2004. "Determinants of the adoption of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT): An empirical analysis based on firm-level data for the Swiss business sector," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 15(3), pages 315-342, September.
    4. Salvatore, Dominick, 2003. "The New Economy and growth in the G-7 countries," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 531-540, July.
    5. Feldstein, Martin, 2003. "Why is productivity growing faster?," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 25(5), pages 445-451, July.
    6. Takeo Hoshi & Anil Kashyap & David Scharfstein, 1991. "Corporate Structure, Liquidity, and Investment: Evidence from Japanese Industrial Groups," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(1), pages 33-60.
    7. J. Bradford De Long & Lawrence H. Summers, 1991. "Equipment Investment and Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(2), pages 445-502.
    8. Todd M. Gabe & David S. Kraybill, 2002. "The Effect of State Economic Development Incentives on Employment Growth of Establishments," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(4), pages 703-730.
    9. Alberto Abadie & David Drukker & Jane Leber Herr & Guido W. Imbens, 2004. "Implementing matching estimators for average treatment effects in Stata," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 4(3), pages 290-311, September.
    10. Richard Harris & Mary Trainor, 2005. "Capital Subsidies and their Impact on Total Factor Productivity: Firm‐Level Evidence from Northern Ireland," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(1), pages 49-74, February.
    11. L. Becchetti & David Bedoya & L. Paganetto, 2003. "ICT Investment, Productivity and Efficiency: Evidence at Firm Level Using a Stochastic Frontier Approach," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 143-167, September.
    12. Sandra E. Black & Lisa M. Lynch, 2001. "How To Compete: The Impact Of Workplace Practices And Information Technology On Productivity," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 83(3), pages 434-445, August.
    13. Fazzari, Steven M & Hubbard, R Glenn & Petersen, Bruce C, 1988. "Investment, Financing Decisions, and Tax Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(2), pages 200-205, May.
    14. Silvia Fabiani & Fabiano Schivardi & Sandro Trento, 2005. "ICT adoption in Italian manufacturing: firm-level evidence," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 14(2), pages 225-249, April.
    15. Steve Bond & Costas Meghir, 1994. "Financial constraints and company investment," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 15(2), pages 1-18, May.
    16. Sandro Trento & Massimo Warglien, 2001. "Nuove tecnologie e cambiamenti organizzativi: alcune implicazioni per le imprese italiane," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 428, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    17. Bronzini, Raffaello & de Blasio, Guido, 2006. "Evaluating the impact of investment incentives: The case of Italy's Law 488/1992," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 327-349, September.
    18. Alberto Abadie & Guido W. Imbens, 2002. "Simple and Bias-Corrected Matching Estimators for Average Treatment Effects," NBER Technical Working Papers 0283, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. James Heckman & Salvador Navarro-Lozano, 2004. "Using Matching, Instrumental Variables, and Control Functions to Estimate Economic Choice Models," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(1), pages 30-57, February.
    20. Guido W. Imbens, 2004. "Nonparametric Estimation of Average Treatment Effects Under Exogeneity: A Review," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(1), pages 4-29, February.
    21. Erik Brynjolfsson & Lorin M. Hitt, 2000. "Beyond Computation: Information Technology, Organizational Transformation and Business Performance," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(4), pages 23-48, Fall.
    22. Joshua Angrist & Jinyong Hahn, 2004. "When to Control for Covariates? Panel Asymptotics for Estimates of Treatment Effects," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(1), pages 58-72, February.
    23. Heckman, James, 2013. "Sample selection bias as a specification error," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 31(3), pages 129-137.
    24. Matteo Bugamelli & Patrizio Pagano, 2004. "Barriers to investment in ICT," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(20), pages 2275-2286.
    25. Simona Iammarino & Cecilia Jona-Lasini & Susanna Mantegazza, 2004. "Labour productivity, ICT and regions: The revival of Italian “dualism”?," SPRU Working Paper Series 127, SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex Business School.
    26. Faini, Riccardo & Schiantarelli, Fabio, 1987. "Incentives and Investment Decisions: The Effectiveness of Regional Policy," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 39(3), pages 516-533, September.
    27. van Tongeren, F. W., 1998. "Microsimulation of Corporate Response to Investment Subsidies," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 55-75, February.
    28. James J. Heckman & Hidehiko Ichimura & Petra Todd, 1998. "Matching As An Econometric Evaluation Estimator," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 65(2), pages 261-294.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Carboni, Oliviero A., 2017. "The effect of public support on investment and R&D: An empirical evaluation on European manufacturing firms," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 282-295.
    2. Stefan KIRCHWEGER & Jochen KANTELHARDT & Friedrich LEISCH, 2015. "Impacts of the government-supported investments on the economic farm performance in Austria," Agricultural Economics, Czech Academy of Agricultural Sciences, vol. 61(8), pages 343-355.
    3. Adel Ben Khalifa, 2018. "Government Supports and Technology Adoption: Evidence from Tunisia," Journal of Economic Development, Chung-Ang Unviersity, Department of Economics, vol. 43(4), pages 41-70, December.
    4. Bannò, Mariasole & Sgobbi, Francesca, 2010. "Firm participation in financial incentive programmes: The case of subsidies for outward internationalisation," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 792-803, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gianfranco E. Atzeni & OA Carboni, 2006. "Regional Disparity in ICT Adoption: an Empirical Evaluation of The Effects of Subsidies in Italy," Working Paper CRENoS 200608, Centre for North South Economic Research, University of Cagliari and Sassari, Sardinia.
    2. Gianfranco E. Atzeni & Oliviero A. Carboni, 2006. "The Effects of Subsidies on Investment: an Empirical Evaluation on ICT in Italy," Revue de l'OFCE, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 97(5), pages 279-302.
    3. Adel Ben Khalifa, 2018. "Government Supports and Technology Adoption: Evidence from Tunisia," Journal of Economic Development, Chung-Ang Unviersity, Department of Economics, vol. 43(4), pages 41-70, December.
    4. Richard Blundell & Lorraine Dearden & Barbara Sianesi, 2005. "Evaluating the effect of education on earnings: models, methods and results from the National Child Development Survey," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 168(3), pages 473-512, July.
    5. Guido W. Imbens & Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, 2009. "Recent Developments in the Econometrics of Program Evaluation," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(1), pages 5-86, March.
    6. Richard Blundell & Lorraine Dearden & Barbara Sianesi, 2003. "Evaluating the impact of education on earnings in the UK: Models, methods and results from the NCDS," IFS Working Papers W03/20, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    7. Carboni, Oliviero A., 2017. "The effect of public support on investment and R&D: An empirical evaluation on European manufacturing firms," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 282-295.
    8. Roberto Gabriele, & Enrico Tundis, & Enrico Zaninotto, 2015. "Public Subsidies and Development of Hotel Industry: Evidence from a Place-based Policy," DEM Discussion Papers 2015/10, Department of Economics and Management.
    9. Dettmann, E. & Becker, C. & Schmeißer, C., 2011. "Distance functions for matching in small samples," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 55(5), pages 1942-1960, May.
    10. Dettmann, Eva & Becker, Claudia & Schmeißer, Christian, 2010. "Is there a Superior Distance Function for Matching in Small Samples?," IWH Discussion Papers 3/2010, Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH).
    11. Heinrich, Carolyn J. & Lopez, Yeri, 2009. "Does Community Participation Produce Dividends in Social Investment Fund Projects?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 37(9), pages 1554-1568, September.
    12. John C. Ham & Xianghong Li & Patricia B. Reagan, 2004. "Propensity Score Matching, a Distance-Based Measure of Migration, and the Wage Growth of Young Men," Working Papers 2004_3, York University, Department of Economics.
    13. Hans Lööf & Anders Broström, 2008. "Does knowledge diffusion between university and industry increase innovativeness?," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 33(1), pages 73-90, February.
    14. Csengődi, Sándor & Jungnickel, Rolf & Urban, Dieter M., 2005. "Foreign Takeovers and Wages: Theory and Evidence from Hungary," HWWA Discussion Papers 337, Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWA).
    15. Bruno Cirillo & Stefano Brusoni & Giovanni Valentini, 2014. "The Rejuvenation of Inventors Through Corporate Spinouts," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 25(6), pages 1764-1784, December.
    16. Fajnzylber, Pablo & Maloney, William F. & Rojas, Gabriel V. Montes, 2006. "Releasing constraints to growth or pushing on a string ? the impact of credit, training, business associations, and taxes on the performance of Mexican micro-firms," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3807, The World Bank.
    17. Seonho Shin, 2022. "Evaluating the Effect of the Matching Grant Program for Refugees: An Observational Study Using Matching, Weighting, and the Mantel-Haenszel Test," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 43(1), pages 103-133, March.
    18. Bernini, Cristina & Pellegrini, Guido, 2013. "Is subsidising tourism firms an effective use of public funds?," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 156-167.
    19. Serenella Caravella & Francesco Crespi, 2021. "The role of public procurement as innovation lever: evidence from Italian manufacturing firms," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(7), pages 663-684, October.
    20. Huber, Martin & Lechner, Michael & Wunsch, Conny, 2013. "The performance of estimators based on the propensity score," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 175(1), pages 1-21.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jpolmo:v:30:y:2008:i:3:p:381-399. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505735 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.