Clustering the Winners: the French Policy of Competitiveness Clusters

Lionel Fontagné, Pamina Koenig, Florian Mayneris and Sandra Poncet ()

Working Papers from CEPII research center

Abstract: In 2005 the French government launched a policy of competitiveness clusters, giving subsidies for innovative projects managed locally and collectively by firms, research centers and universities. This paper proposes an ex-ante analysis of the outcome of the selection process that took place before the implementation of the subsidies program, in order to assess whether the policy ended up in choosing winners or losers. We first ask how the clusters have been selected, and then focus on the selection of firms within the clusters, using export and productivity as a measure of performance. Our main conclusion is that public authorities have chosen the winners during the two-step selection procedure. Export premium, beyond what individual characteristics would predict, is however most visible within the category of clusters having no international ambition, where heterogeneity among firms is the largest.

Keywords: Competitiveness; Clusters; International Trade; Firm selection (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F1 F14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cse, nep-int and nep-sbm
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Related works:
Journal Article: CLUSTER POLICIES AND FIRM SELECTION: EVIDENCE FROM FRANCE (2013)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cii:cepidt:2010-18

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