Abstract

We study the contextual role of public procurement for the effectiveness of grants-based entrepreneurship policy. Drawing on the resource-based view of the firm, we argue that partaking in procurement can erode grant effectiveness by relaxing a firm’s preexisting financial constraints and diverting managerial attention away from market-centered resource configurations. To test our hypothesis, we use detailed firm-level data from Slovenia and combine matching with difference-in-differences. When firms are not involved in procurement, all investigated types of grants meet the intended policy goals, apart from productivity growth. In contrast, when firms participate in procurement, small-business grants exhibit generally weaker effects, R&D grants fail to have any impact, and employment grants lastingly reduce firm productivity. Given that public procurement occupies a large footprint in many economies, our analysis highlights an unintended adverse by-product of big government and underscores the limits of state capitalism.

中文翻译：

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大政府的副产品：公共采购对基于赠款的创业政策有效性的削弱作用

摘要

我们研究了公共采购对基于赠款的创业政策有效性的背景作用。借鉴公司的资源基础观点，我们认为参与采购可以通过放松公司先前存在的财务约束和将管理注意力从以市场为中心的资源配置上转移开来削弱赠款的有效性。为了检验我们的假设，我们使用来自斯洛文尼亚的详细公司层面数据，并将匹配与差异中的差异相结合。当公司不参与采购时，除了生产率增长之外，所有调查类型的赠款都符合预期的政策目标。相比之下，当公司参与采购时，小企业赠款通常表现出较弱的影响，研发赠款没有任何影响，就业赠款会持久降低企业生产率。