The Italian startup act: A microeconometric program evaluation

Francesco Biancalani, Dirk Czarnitzki and Massimo Riccaboni

No 20-006, ZEW Discussion Papers from ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research

Abstract: This paper analyses the impact of the Italian Startup Act which entered into force in December 2012. This public policy provides a unique bundle of benefits, such as tax incentives, public loan guarantees, and a more flexible labor law, for firms registered as "innovative startups" in Italy. This legislation has been implemented by the Italian government to increase innovativeness of small and young enterprises by facilitating improved access to (external) capital and (highskilled) labor. Consequently, the goal of our evaluation is to assess the impact of the policy on equity, debt and employment. Using various conditional difference-in-difference models, we find that the Italian startup policy has met its primary objectives. The econometric results strongly suggest that firms operating under this program are more successful in obtaining equity and debt capital and they also hire more employees because of the program participation.

Keywords: start up; innovation policy; firm subsidies; small firms (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: M13 O38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ent, nep-eur, nep-ino, nep-sbm and nep-tid
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Journal Article: The Italian Start Up Act: a microeconometric program evaluation (2022)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:zewdip:20006

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