National or international public funding? Subsidies or loans? Evaluating the innovation impact of R&D support programmes

Elena Huergo and Lourdes Moreno

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: The objective of this study is to compare the effect of different types of public support for R&D projects on firms’ technological capabilities. We distinguish be-tween low-interest loans and subsidies and between national and European sup-port. Using data on 2,319 Spanish firms during the period 2002-2005, we estimate a multivariate probit to analyse the determinants of firms’ participation in public R&D programmes and, later, the impact of this participation on firms’ technologi-cal capabilities using different indicators. The results provide evidence of the ef-fectiveness of all treatments for improving firms’ innovative performance. Specif-ically, although the three kinds of public aid stimulate the intensity of R&D in-vestment, the highest impact corresponds to soft credits. In addition, national sub-sidies have a higher impact on internal R&D intensity than EU grants, but the op-posite relation is found as regards total R&D intensity. With respect to innovation outputs, apart from the indirect effect of public support by stimulating R&D in-tensity, we also find evidence of a direct effect of participation in the CDTI credit system and in the European subsidy programme on the probability of obtaining product innovations and applying for patents.

Keywords: Soft loans; R&D subsidies; impact assessment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H81 L2 L52 O3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-03-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cse, nep-eur, nep-ino, nep-knm, nep-ppm, nep-sbm and nep-tid
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Subsidies or loans? Evaluating the impact of R&D support programmes (2017)
Working Paper: National or international public funding? Subsidies or loans? Evaluating the innovation impact of R&D support programmes (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:54218

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