Evaluating a place-based innovation policy: Evidence from the innovative Regional Growth Cores Program in East Germany

Falck, Oliver; Koenen, Johannes und Lohse, Tobias (2019): Evaluating a place-based innovation policy: Evidence from the innovative Regional Growth Cores Program in East Germany. In: Regional Science and Urban Economics, Bd. 79, UNSP 103480

Abstract

We evaluate one of the largest place-based innovation policies in Germany - the Innovative Regional Growth Cores (IRGC) program. It subsidizes collaborative development and commercialization projects of firms and public research institutes co-located in regions in Eastern Germany, with the explicit goal of generating local spillovers to promote regional economic development. We evaluate three potential types of effects with regard to a broad set of outcomes at the firm and regional level: (1) The policy's effects on directly subsidized firms;(2) spillover effects on non-subsidized innovative firms located in the same region;(3) (aggregate) effects on regional-level economic outcomes. We find that directly treated firms increase their R&D activities in the short-and medium-run. However, we are not able to provide significant or economically meaningful evidence for the effectiveness of channels (2) and (3), applying a wide range of econometric methods. Overall, these results cast doubt about the effectiveness of the program.

• Dokumententyp: Zeitschriftenartikel
• Fakultät: Volkswirtschaft
• Themengebiete: 300 Sozialwissenschaften > 330 Wirtschaft
• ISSN: 0166-0462
• Sprache: Englisch