Impact Analysis of Technological Public Services Supplied to Local Firms: a Methodology

The aim of this work is to present a methodology useful to verify the impact of\r\npublic interventions directed to support the technological innovation in local groups of SMEs.\r\nIn the last decades, in several agglomerations of firms, some difficulties emerged, related to the\r\nsmall-medium enterprises gaps in innovation, to their low competitiveness and to the rising of\r\ndistinct historical heritages in specific areas. To overcome them, some public interventions have\r\nbeen put into place, aimed at supporting the local units’ development, and at sustaining the\r\ngrowth of the area.\r\nThe work examines two central points of this mechanism. Is it possible to evaluate the effects\r\nand the utility of the above mentioned public actions on the involved SMEs? Which is the\r\nmethodology that is appropriate for such an evaluation?\r\nIn the economic literature these questions are linked to the “evaluation problem”. This work\r\nsuggests four methodologies (statistical - descriptive analysis and the application of regression,\r\nProbit and difference in difference models) to achieve these targets and, before that, it discusses\r\nthe type of data that should be collected to apply them.