Assessing the economic impact of public industrial policies: an empirical investigation on subsidies

Roberto Gabriele (), Marco Zamarian () and Enrico Zaninotto ()
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Marco Zamarian: DISA, Faculty of Economics, Trento University
Enrico Zaninotto: DISA, Faculty of Economics, Trento University

No 39, ROCK Working Papers from Department of Computer and Management Sciences, University of Trento, Italy

Abstract: Empirical literature findings do not provide a clear-cut interpretation of the effects of public aid on firms’ performances. We contribute to this literature analysing the effects of public regional subsidies on investment using a new dataset covering all the firms in the Italian province of Trento, along with a record of public aid granted in the last 15 years. We find permanent positive effects of aid on firms’ size, but no effect is found on factor substitution, nor on technical change. Moreover, subsidies do not improve either profitability or productivity. These results help better define the scope for local aid.

Keywords: regional policy; public subsidies; propensity score matching (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: R11 R58 C31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006-01, Revised 2008-06-12
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Working Paper: Assessing the economic impact of public industrial policies: an empirical investigation on subsidies (2006)
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