A territorial approach to R&D subsidies: Empirical evidence for Catalonian firms

Segarra Blasco, Agustí, 1958-, Mercedes Teruel and Miquel Àngel Bové Sans

Working Papers from Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Department of Economics

Abstract: Using a database of 2,263 responses to R&D public calls in Catalonia, during the period 2007–2010, this paper proceeds to analyse the potential interaction of the territorial and policy dimensions with the propensity to apply for, and be awarded, a public R&D subsidy. Controlling for characteristics at the firm and project level, we estimate models using a two-step procedure. In the first step, our results suggest that large firms which export and which belong to high-tech manufactures are more likely to participate in a public R&D call. Furthermore, both urban location and past experience of such calls have a positive effect. Our territorial proxy of information spillovers shows a positive sign, but this is only significant at intra-industry level. Membership of one of the sectors prioritized by the Catalan government, perhaps surprisingly, does not have a significant impact. In the second step, our results show that cooperative projects, SMEs or old firms shows a positive effect on the probability of obtaining a public subsidy. Finally, the cluster policy does not show a clear relationship with the public R&D call, suggesting that cluster policies and R&D subsidies follow different goals. Our results are in line with previous results in the literature, but they highlight the unequal territorial distribution of the firms which apply and the fact that policymakers should interlink the decision criteria for their public call with other policies. Keywords: Evaluation, R&D policies, territorial approach, clusters JEL Classifications: L53, L25, O38

Keywords: Innovacions tecnològiques -- Política governamental; Sistemes productius locals; Política industrial; Empreses -- Dimensió -- Catalunya; 332 - Economia regional i territorial. Economia del sòl i de la vivenda (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-geo, nep-ino, nep-knm, nep-sbm and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/2072/242275

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:urv:wpaper:2072/242275

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Department of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Ariadna Casals ().