A comparative evaluation of regional subsidies for collaborative and individual R&D in small and medium-sized enterprises

Abstract

We analyse whether public subsidies supporting collaborative research and development (R&D) projects in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are able to encourage persistent R&D investment and interorganisational networking more than subsidies supporting individual R&D projects. Adopting a counterfactual approach to policy evaluation, we compare subsidies for collaborative R&D and for individual R&D implemented in the same Italian region in the same period. Our findings suggest that, once public support is no longer available, the two subsidies have different effects on different types of SMEs. If the policymakers' objective is to increase the number of R&D-performing SMEs over time, they should provide subsidies for collaborative R&D to firms with modest R&D experience. If their objective is to increase the amount of spontaneous R&D investment over time, they should target SMEs with some prior R&D experience, using either subsidy. Finally, if their objective is to induce SMEs to network with external organisations, subsidies for collaborative R&D projects should be preferred to subsidies for individual R&D projects.

Assessing the Collaboration and Network Additionality of Innovation Policies: A Counterfactual Approach to the French Cluster Policy

“…We therefore confirm the results obtained for other collaboration-based policies (regional support to R&D collaboration) in various countries regarding the ability of public incentives to generate collaboration additionality (Afcha Chavez, 2011;Nishimura and Okamuro, 2011;Caloffi et al, 2018Caloffi et al, , 2011. We add to these previous results in providing specific insights regarding the lack of local impact (H2) of cluster policies, at least in France.…”

“…We rely on the standardised mean difference (SMD) to assess the balance in baseline characteristics between treated and control groups (Austin and Stuart, 2015;Caloffi et al, 2018). While there is no consensus as to what value of a standardised mean difference can be considered as an indication of imbalance, several authors have suggested that a standardised mean difference in excess of 0.1 may be indicative of meaningful imbalance in a covariate between treated and control subjects (e.g.…”

What kinds of R&D consortia enhance SMEs productivity? A hierarchical Bayesian approach for the analysis of a regional innovation policy

“…In order to formulate some hypotheses, we refer to the theoretical and empirical findings of the literature on R&D collaborations, and adapt the main ideas to the specific object of our analysis. We will draw from the following fields of literature: first, the studies that have considered the effect of alternative configurations of large-scale policy-elicited R&D consortia on firms' or projects' outcomes (Branstetter & Sakakibara, 2002;Bizan, 2003;Sakakibara & Branstetter, 2003;Schwartz et al, 2012;Spanos et al, 2015); second, the studies that have analysed (mostly pairwise and/or mostly spontaneous) R&D collaborations involving SMEs (Belderbos, Carree, & Lokshin, 2004;Okamuro, 2007;Marzucchi et al, 2016;Caloffi, Mariani, Rossi, & Russo, 2018).…”

The Impact of the Openness of Firms’ External Search Strategies on Exploratory Innovation and Exploitative Innovation

“…However, no matter which level of openness and what type of innovation, they are closely related to innovation capability. Firms should try their best to improve their innovation capability [66].…”