Evaluating Public Supports to the Investment Activities of Business Firms: A Multilevel Meta-Regression Analysis of Italian Studies

TL;DR

This study uses a multilevel meta-regression analysis of Italian enterprise policies to evaluate the likelihood of positive effects, highlighting that policies benefit weaker firms but have limited long-term impact.

Contribution

It introduces a multilevel meta-regression approach considering co-authorship networks to assess policy effectiveness in Italy.

Findings

Higher probability of positive effects for weaker firms

Public policies more effective on targeted outcomes

Limited long-term impact of policies

Abstract

We conduct an extensive meta-regression analysis of counterfactual programme evaluations from Italy, considering both published and grey literature on enterprise and innovation policies. We specify a multilevel model for the probability of finding positive effect estimates, also assessing correlation possibly induced by co-authorship networks. We find that the probability of positive effects is considerable, especially for weaker firms and outcomes that are directly targeted by public programmes. However, these policies are less likely to trigger change in the long run.