Evaluation of the Impact of Innovative Activites on Productivity – Example From the Czech Republic

Krause, Josef

doi:10.17512/pjms.2016.13.2.10

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Most of the recent studies in the Central and Eastern European region have been focused on the evaluation of cohesion R&D policies and those aimed at the elimination of the regional disparities, e.g., [60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68][69][70], policies facilitating trainings and education [71,72] and effectivity of the self-employment programmes for the unemployed [73][74][75]. However, based on a search in the databases of previously published academic articles and research reports, no study has been focused on the evaluation of entrepreneurship support through the financial instruments yet.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of Soft Loans and Credit Guarantees on Performance of Supported Firms: Evidence from the Czech Public Programme START

Dvouletý

2017

Sustainability

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Abstract:The purpose of this article was to conduct an empirical evaluation of the Czech public programme START, which was funded from the European Regional Development Fund. The programme lasted from 2007-2011, and supported new entrepreneurs through the zero interest soft loans and credit guarantees. The counterfactual analysis (using three matching techniques: propensity score, nearest neighbour, and kernel) was conducted on the firm level and investigated the changes in financial performance (net profits, return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE), sales, assets turnover, and debt ratio) of the supported firms four years after the end of intervention. The obtained findings could not support the hypothesis assuming a positive impact of the programme on the firm's performance. On the contrary, supported companies reported on average lower sales and lower return on assets, when compared to the control group. The remaining variables could not prove any statistically significant impact of the programme. Indicators measuring firm's profitability (net profit, return on assets, and return on equity) suggested a negative influence of the programme and the variable representing debt ratio further indicated that firms that were supported by the programme reported on average higher debt ratio in comparison with the control group. Several policy implications are discussed in the study.

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