Selective subsidies, entrepreneurial founders' human capital, and access to R&D alliances

Luca Grilli and Samuele Murtinu

Research Policy, 2018, vol. 47, issue 10, 1945-1963

Abstract: We investigate if and to what extent the receipt of a “selective” subsidy – a public subsidy awarded through a competitive procedure – helps new technology-based firms (NTBFs) to access R&D alliances. In particular, we theoretically enquire and empirically analyze which founding team-level characteristics allow NTBFs to: i) get a selective subsidy; and ii) access an R&D alliance with another firm or a public research organization/university, once the subsidy is awarded. We use a sample of 902 NTBFs that operate in Italy, where industrial policy has never had an explicit and exclusive mandate neither for targeting NTBFs nor for easing their access to R&D networks. By means of several identification strategies and estimation methods, our results point to the relevance of selective subsidies in facilitating NTBFs to enter R&D alliances, independently from the objective of the policy measure. Second, founders’ technical education figures as a key determinant to get the first selective subsidy. Finally, founders’ previous industry-specific work experience allows NTBFs to better exploit the selective subsidy, by positively moderating the impact of the subsidy on the likelihood to establish a corporate R&D alliance.

Keywords: New technology-based firms; Selective public subsidies; R&D alliances; Founders’; human capital (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H25 H81 L26 M13 M21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733318301665
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

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:eee:respol:v:47:y:2018:i:10:p:1945-1963

DOI: 10.1016/j.respol.2018.07.001

Access Statistics for this article

Research Policy is currently edited by M. Bell, B. Martin, W.E. Steinmueller, A. Arora, M. Callon, M. Kenney, S. Kuhlmann, Keun Lee and F. Murray

More articles in Research Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().