Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/159585 
Year of Publication: 
2011
Series/Report no.: 
Quaderni - Working Paper DSE No. 744
Publisher: 
Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche (DSE), Bologna
Abstract: 
In this paper, we evaluate the R&D enhancing effects of two large public grant schemes aiming at encouraging the performance of firms organized in clusters. These are Germany's well known BioRegio and BioProfile contests for which we compare the research performance of winning regions in contrast with non-winning and non-participating comparison regions. We apply Difference-in-Difference estimation techniques in a generalized linear model framework, which allows to control for different initial regional conditions in the biotechnology related R&D activity. Our econometric findings support the view that winners generally outperform non-winning participants during the treatment period, thus indicating that exclusive funding as well as the stimulating effect of being a "winner" seems to work in the short-term. In contrast, no indirect impacts stemming from a potential mobilizing effect of the contest approaches have been detected. Also, we find only limited evidence for long-term effects of public R&D grants in the post-treatment period. The results of our analysis remain stable if we additionally augment the model to account for the particular role of spatial dependence in the R&D outcome variables.
JEL: 
O38
R38
C23
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by-nc Logo
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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