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Estudios de economía
On-line version ISSN 0718-5286
Estudios de Economía vol.45 no.2 Santiago Dec. 2018
http://dx.doi.org/10.4067/S0718-52862018000200251
Artículos
Public support to firm-level innovation: An evaluation of the FONTAR program
Apoyo público a la innovación de las firmas: Una evaluación del FONTAR
1Argentina. UNGS-CIECTI Correo electrónico: mpereira@ciecti.org.ar
2Argentina. UNLP-CIECTI Correo electrónico: julian.martinezcorrea@gmail.com
3Argentina. UNLP Correo electrónico: gabrielscattolo@gmail.com
This paper studies the impact of non-refundable grants (NRG) of the Argentinean Technological Fund (FONTAR) on firms’ innovative efforts and performance. We use a panel database of 954 firms that applied for public support to innovate during the period 2007-2013. Using a difference-in-differences approach, our results show that the NRG have a positive effect on firms’ innovative intensity, considering both the innovation activities to sales ratio and R&D to sales ratio. These remain robust to alternative definitions of control group and the outcome variable. Analysis of heterogeneous effects reveals that the impact was exclusively concentrated on small and young firms.
Keywords: Innovation; impact evaluation; Argentina
Este trabajo analiza el impacto de los aportes no reembolsabes (ANR) del Fondo Tecnológico Argentino (FONTAR) sobre el esfuerzo y desempeño en innovación de las firmas. Usamos un panel de 954 empresas que solicitaron apoyo público para innovar durante el período 2007-2013. Utilizando un enfoque de diferencias-en-diferencias, nuestros resultados muestran que los ANR tienen un efecto positivo en la intensidad innovadora de las firmas, considerando tanto el ratio de actividades de innovación sobre ventas como el de gastos de I+D sobre ventas. Estos resultados son robustos a definiciones alternativas de grupo de control y variables de resultados. El análisis de efectos heterogéneos revela que estos provienen exclusivamente de las empresas jóvenes y pequeñas.
Palabras clave: Innovación; evaluación de impacto; Argentina
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Received: October 19, 2017; Accepted: May 31, 2018
Este es un artículo publicado en acceso abierto bajo una licencia Creative Commons
