Public support to firm-level innovation: An evaluation of the FONTAR program

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-differenc...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inEstudios de Economía Vol. 45; no. 2; pp. 251 - 269
Main Authors Pereira, Mariano, Martínez Correa, Julián, Scattolo, Gabriel
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Santiago de Chile Universidad de Chile, Departamento de Economía 01.12.2018
Estudios de Economia
Universidad de Chile. Departamento de Economía
Subjects
Argentina
Beneficiaries
C23
Companies
ECONOMICS
Funding
Grants
Impact analysis
impact evaluation
Innovation
Innovations
JEL Classification: O32
Program evaluation
Public opinion
R&D
Research & development
Research & development expenditures
Sales
Argentina
Argentina
Innovation
impact evaluation
Innovación
evaluación de impacto
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Summary: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.
ISSN:0718-5286
0304-2758
0718-5286
DOI:10.4067/S0718-52862018000200251