Impact analysis of public policies supporting SMEs’ technological innovation: an Italian case

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the impact of public policies supporting firms’ innovation and technological development. The final aim is to identify the factors that influence the effective success of these interventions. This research analyses 166 small-medium enterprises (SMEs), located in a high-tech region of the North–West of Italy, which received some public supports. The results show that public interventions have not homogeneous impacts on firms’ performances, but they depend on the firms’ age, size, industrial sector and, most of all, on their innovative level, as well as on the number, types, timing and extent of the projects realised. These results offer a first account on firms’ reactions to public policies and provide an useful ground to policymakers’ strategies to increase the regional economic growth.