IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/streco/v50y2019icp39-50.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do selected firms show higher performance? The case of Portugal’s innovation subsidy

Author

Listed:
  • Santos, Anabela

Abstract

The paper evaluates the effect of a Portuguese innovation subsidy (SI Innovation), launched in 2007–2013, on firm performance. Using counterfactual analysis methods and a sample composed of firms with approved applications and non-approved ones, the study shows that firms with the best proposals and with higher performance in the pre-intervention period are more likely to receive the subsidy. A positive and sustainable effect of the subsidy, within a time-window of 5 years, on fixed asset investment and technological progress are found. However, it seems that public support has only an effect on the size of investment and not on the decision to invest. Subsidized firms also perform less well than matched non-subsidized ones, and they are less effective in achieving the planned goals concerning labour productivity and value creation.

Suggested Citation

  • Santos, Anabela, 2019. "Do selected firms show higher performance? The case of Portugal’s innovation subsidy," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 39-50.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:streco:v:50:y:2019:i:c:p:39-50
    DOI: 10.1016/j.strueco.2019.04.003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0954349X18301978
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.strueco.2019.04.003?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    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. Anabela Marques Santos, 2018. "Public and private financing of innovation: Assessing constraints, selection process and firm performance," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/277460, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    2. Silva Filipe & Carreira Carlos, 2017. "Financial Constraints: Do They Matter to Allocate R&D Subsidies?," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 17(4), pages 1-26, October.
    3. José Ángel Zúñiga-Vicente & César Alonso-Borrego & Francisco J. Forcadell & José I. Galán, 2014. "Assessing The Effect Of Public Subsidies On Firm R&D Investment: A Survey," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(1), pages 36-67, February.
    4. Elena Gennari & Francesca Lotti, 2013. "Female entrepreneurship and government policy: evaluating the impact of subsidies on firms' survival," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 192, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    5. Alberto Abadie & Guido W. Imbens, 2016. "Matching on the Estimated Propensity Score," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 84, pages 781-807, March.
    6. Marco Caliendo & Sabine Kopeinig, 2008. "Some Practical Guidance For The Implementation Of Propensity Score Matching," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(1), pages 31-72, February.
    7. Isabel Busom, 2000. "An Empirical Evaluation of The Effects of R&D Subsidies," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(2), pages 111-148.
    8. Hud, Martin & Hussinger, Katrin, 2015. "The impact of R&D subsidies during the crisis," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(10), pages 1844-1855.
    9. Zélia Serrasqueiro & Paulo Maçãs Nunes, 2016. "Determinants of Growth in Portuguese Small and Medium-Sized Hotels: Empirical Evidence Using Panel Data Models," Tourism Economics, , vol. 22(2), pages 375-396, April.
    10. Hall, Bronwyn H. & Mairesse, Jacques, 1995. "Exploring the relationship between R&D and productivity in French manufacturing firms," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 263-293, January.
    11. Nicola Francesco Dotti, 2016. "Learning from implementation and evaluation of the EU Cohesion Policy: Lessons from a research-policy dialogue," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/260380, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    12. Bernini, Cristina & Pellegrini, Guido, 2011. "How are growth and productivity in private firms affected by public subsidy? Evidence from a regional policy," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 253-265, May.
    13. Dirk Czarnitzki & Cindy Lopes-Bento, 2014. "Innovation Subsidies: Does the Funding Source Matter for Innovation Intensity and Performance? Empirical Evidence from Germany," Industry and Innovation, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(5), pages 380-409, July.
    14. Hashi, Iraj & Stojčić, Nebojša, 2013. "The impact of innovation activities on firm performance using a multi-stage model: Evidence from the Community Innovation Survey 4," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 353-366.
    15. Alessandra Catozzella & Marco Vivarelli, 2016. "The possible adverse impact of innovation subsidies: some evidence from Italy," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 12(2), pages 351-368, June.
    16. Sascha O. Becker & Andrea Ichino, 2002. "Estimation of average treatment effects based on propensity scores," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 2(4), pages 358-377, November.
    17. Cerqua, Augusto & Pellegrini, Guido, 2014. "Do subsidies to private capital boost firms' growth? A multiple regression discontinuity design approach," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 114-126.
    18. Lutfi Erden & Randall G. Holcombe, 2005. "The Effects of Public Investment on Private Investment in Developing Economies," Public Finance Review, , vol. 33(5), pages 575-602, September.
    19. Filipe Silva & Carlos Carreira, 2012. "Do financial constraints threat the innovation process? Evidence from Portuguese firms," Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(8), pages 701-736, November.
    20. Bettina Becker, 2015. "Public R&D Policies And Private R&D Investment: A Survey Of The Empirical Evidence," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(5), pages 917-942, December.
    21. Baltagi, Badi H., 2015. "The Oxford Handbook of Panel Data," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199940042.
    22. Dimos, Christos & Pugh, Geoff, 2016. "The effectiveness of R&D subsidies: A meta-regression analysis of the evaluation literature," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(4), pages 797-815.
    23. Shahidur R. Khandker & Gayatri B. Koolwal & Hussain A. Samad, . "Handbook on Impact Evaluation : Quantitative Methods and Practices," World Bank Publications, The World Bank, number 2693, September.
    24. Armando Silva, 2010. "The role of subsidies for exports: Evidence for Portuguese manufacturing firms," FEP Working Papers 383, Universidade do Porto, Faculdade de Economia do Porto.
    25. Scott J. Wallsten, 2000. "The Effects of Government-Industry R&D Programs on Private R&D: The Case of the Small Business Innovation Research Program," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 31(1), pages 82-100, Spring.
    26. Natália Barbosa & Fábio Silva, 2018. "Public financial support and firm-specific characteristics: evidence from Portugal," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(4), pages 670-686, April.
    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. Busu, Mihail & Caraiani, Petre & Hadad, Shahrazad & Incze, Cynthia Bianka & Vargas, Madalina Vanesa, 2021. "The performance of publicly funded startups in Romania," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 45(3).
    2. Coad, Alex & Grassano, Nicola & Hall, Bronwyn H. & Moncada-Paternò-Castello, Pietro & Vezzani, Antonio, 2019. "Innovation and industrial dynamics," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 126-131.
    3. Cátia Rosário & Celeste Varum & Anabela Botelho, 2022. "Impact of Public Support for Innovation on Company Performance: Review and Meta-Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(8), pages 1-16, April.
    4. Jugend, Daniel & Fiorini, Paula De Camargo & Armellini, Fabiano & Ferrari, Aline Gabriela, 2020. "Public support for innovation: A systematic review of the literature and implications for open innovation," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    5. Shuai Wang & Fayyaz Ahmad & Yanlong Li & Nabila Abid & Abbas Ali Chandio & Abdul Rehman, 2022. "The Impact of Industrial Subsidies and Enterprise Innovation on Enterprise Performance: Evidence from Listed Chinese Manufacturing Companies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(8), pages 1-17, April.
    6. Pan, Xianyou & Yuan, Ge & Wu, Xianhua & Xie, Pinjie, 2023. "The effects of government subsidies on the economic profits of hydrogen energy enterprises – An analysis based on A-share listed enterprises in China," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 211(C), pages 445-451.
    7. Pu‐Yan Nie & Xu Xiao & Chan Wang & Ting Cui, 2020. "Innovation subsidy under duopoly," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 41(3), pages 362-370, April.
    8. Alexandre, Fernando & Chaves, Miguel & Portela, Miguel, 2022. "Investment Grants and Firms' Productivity: How Effective Is a Grant Booster Shot?," IZA Discussion Papers 15779, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Tânia Pinto & Aurora Teixeira, 2023. "Does scientific research output matter for Portugal’s economic growth?," GEE Papers 0174, Gabinete de Estratégia e Estudos, Ministério da Economia, revised Jul 2023.
    10. Yanfeng Lou & Yezhuang Tian & Kai Wang, 2020. "The Spillover Effect of US Industrial Subsidies on China’s Exports," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-12, April.
    11. Raphaël CHIAPPINI & Sophie POMMET, 2023. "The impact of public support for innovation on SME performance and efficiency," Bordeaux Economics Working Papers 2023-06, Bordeaux School of Economics (BSE).
    12. Yang, Zhenbing & Shao, Shuai & Yang, Lili, 2021. "Unintended consequences of carbon regulation on the performance of SOEs in China: The role of technical efficiency," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).

    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. Anabela Santos & Michele Cincera & Paulo Neto & Maria Manuel Serrano, 2019. "Which projects are selected for an innovation subsidy? The Portuguese case," Portuguese Economic Journal, Springer;Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestao, vol. 18(3), pages 165-202, October.
    2. Bianchini, Stefano & Llerena, Patrick & Martino, Roberto, 2019. "The impact of R&D subsidies under different institutional frameworks," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 65-78.
    3. Anabela Santos & Michele Cincera & Paulo Neto & Maria Manuel Serrano, 2019. "How internationalization and competitiveness contribute to get public support to innovation? The Portuguese case," GEE Papers 0121, Gabinete de Estratégia e Estudos, Ministério da Economia, revised May 2019.
    4. Enrico Vanino & Stephen Roper & Bettina Becker, 2020. "Knowledge to Money: Assessing the Business Performance Effects of Publicly Funded R&D Grants," ifo DICE Report, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 17(04), pages 20-24, January.
    5. Thomas H. W. Ziesemer, 2021. "The Effects of R&D Subsidies and Publicly Performed R&D on Business R&D: A Survey," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 236(1), pages 171-205, March.
    6. Andrea Bellucci & Luca Pennacchio & Alberto Zazzaro, 2019. "R&D Subsidies and Firms’ Debt Financing," CSEF Working Papers 527, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    7. Dumont, Michel, 2017. "Assessing the policy mix of public support to business R&D," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(10), pages 1851-1862.
    8. Lee, Jeongwon & Hwang, Junseok & Kim, Hana, 2022. "Different government support effects on emerging and mature ICT sectors," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 174(C).
    9. Shuang Wang & Shukuan Zhao & Dong Shao & Hongyu Liu, 2020. "Impact of Government Subsidies on Manufacturing Innovation in China: The Moderating Role of Political Connections and Investor Attention," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(18), pages 1-21, September.
    10. Vlasova, Valeriya, 2021. "Industry-science cooperation and public policy instruments utilization in the private sector," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 519-528.
    11. Anabela Santos & Michele Cincera & Giovanni Cerulli, 2019. "Assessing Financing, Innovation and Growth Linkage: New Evidence for Policy," Working Paper 54d93216-99f7-4438-975d-2, European Microfinance Network.
    12. Ondřej Dvouletý & Stjepan Srhoj & Smaranda Pantea, 2021. "Public SME grants and firm performance in European Union: A systematic review of empirical evidence," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 57(1), pages 243-263, June.
    13. Michel Dumont, 2015. "Working Paper 05-15 - Evaluation of federal tax incentives for private R&D in Belgium: An update," Working Papers 1505, Federal Planning Bureau, Belgium.
    14. Stjepan Srhoj & Bruno Škrinjarić & Sonja Radas, 2021. "Bidding against the odds? The impact evaluation of grants for young micro and small firms during the recession," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 56(1), pages 83-103, January.
    15. Nadine Levratto & Aurelien Quignon, 2021. "Innovation Performance and the Signal Effect: Evidence from a European Program," Working Papers halshs-03466903, HAL.
    16. Sonja Radas & Andrea Mervar & Bruno Škrinjarić, 2020. "Regional Perspective on R&D Policies for SMEs: Does Success Breed Success?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(9), pages 1-25, May.
    17. Aurélien Quignon & Nadine Levratto, 2021. "Innovation Performance and the Signal Effect: Evidence from a European Program," EconomiX Working Papers 2021-34, University of Paris Nanterre, EconomiX.
    18. Huergo, Elena & Moreno, Lourdes, 2017. "Subsidies or loans? Evaluating the impact of R&D support programmes," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(7), pages 1198-1214.
    19. Heijs, Joost & Guerrero, Alex J. & Huergo, Elena, 2020. "Matching methods for impact evaluation of public subsidies to business R&D: Measuring heterogeneous effects," MPRA Paper 103874, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Ascensión Barajas & Elena Huergo & Lourdes Moreno, 2021. "The role of public loans in financing business R&D through the economic cycle," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 38(2), pages 505-538, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Subsidy; Innovation; Firms’ performance;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H71 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
    • R38 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Real Estate Markets, Spatial Production Analysis, and Firm Location - - - Government Policy

    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:streco:v:50:y:2019:i:c:p:39-50. 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/525148 .

    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.