Animate the cluster or subsidize collaborative R&D? A multiple overlapping treatments approach to assess the impacts of the French cluster policy

Modou Mar and Nadine Massard
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Modou Mar: GAEL - Laboratoire d'Economie Appliquée de Grenoble - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement - UGA - Université Grenoble Alpes - Grenoble INP - Institut polytechnique de Grenoble - Grenoble Institute of Technology - UGA - Université Grenoble Alpes

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Abstract: This article examines the effectiveness of the French cluster policy on R&D and innovation in terms of the economic performance of participating SMEs. Based on an original dataset, we built different measures of treatment and extended the DiD methodology to a multiple overlapping treatments approach. Joining a cluster's association allows firms to benefit from low-cost animation actions and common services, while participating in R&D projects offers substantial financial support. Our findings indicate a complementarity between the two types of instruments since the policy is most effective when the two treatments are simultaneously used. Interestingly, they also show that belonging to a cluster alone induces much stronger positive impacts on R&D spending and on both the R&D and total employment of SMEs than participating in R&D collaborative projects alone. Therefore, to achieve its impact on SMEs, the cluster policy should not overlook low-cost instruments such as animation actions and common services, both as a standalone instrument and as an effective complement to subsidy policies for collaborative R&D projects.

Keywords: Cluster policy; R&D; Economic performance; SME; Innovation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-05-08
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Published in Industrial and Corporate Change, 2021, 30 (4), pp.845-867. ⟨10.1093/icc/dtab002⟩

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Related works:
Journal Article: Animate the cluster or subsidize collaborative R&D? A multiple overlapping treatments approach to assess the impacts of the French cluster policy (2021)
Working Paper: Animate the cluster or subsidize collaborative R&D? A multiple overlapping treatments approach to assess the impact of the French cluster policy (2019)
Working Paper: Animate the cluster or subsidize collaborative R&D? A multiple overlapping treatments approach to assess the impact of the French cluster policy (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03222070

DOI: 10.1093/icc/dtab002

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