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The Review of Economics and Statistics Vol. 96 No. 4 2014

R&D Subsidies and Company Performance: Evidence from Geographic Variation in Government Funding Based on the ERDF Population-Density Rule

Elias Einiö

London School of Economics and Political Science

Abstract

Despite the prevalence of R&D support programs, evaluation studies based on explicit differences in support allocation are rare. In this paper, the identification of the causal effect of R&D support on company performance is based on geographic variation in government funding arising from a population-density rule. I find positive impacts on R&D investment, employment, and sales among the participants who were granted an R&D subsidy as a result of additional aggregate R&D support funding in their region. Although there are no instantaneous impacts on productivity, the study provides evidence of long-term productivity gains.

DOI
10.1162/rest_a_00410
Volume
96
Issue
4
Pages
710-728
Language
en
Sources
openalex crossref

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