Impact evaluations of business development grants targeting young firms have been somewhat neglected in the literature. While most research studies focus on the impact of research and development ...grants, a larger percentage of young firms would benefit from grants that assist them in business development activities. In this paper, we examine the impact of small business development grants on young small firm survival, turnover growth, labor growth, and access to external finances. We study this topic in the context of a long recession in Croatia (2009 to 2014), which makes it possible to better observe the effect of the public instrument intervention. Results show positive effect on firm survival and on obtaining long-term bank loans and no significant effects on firm performance. The grant scheme was most successful for firms newest to the market.
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CEKLJ, EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
In this paper we propose a new method of eliciting market research information. Instead of asking respondents for their personal choices and preferences, we ask respondents to predict the choices of ...other respondents to the survey. Such predictions tap respondents' knowledge of peers, whether based on direct social contacts or on more general cultural information. The effectiveness of this approach has already been demonstrated in the context of political polling. Here we extend it to market research, specifically, to conjoint analysis. An advantage of the new approach is that it can elicit reliable responses in situations where people are not comfortable with disclosing their true preferences, but may be willing to give information about people around them. A theoretical argument demonstrates that predictions should yield utility estimates that are more accurate. These theoretical results are confirmed in four online experiments.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Many areas of economics use subjective data, although it had been known to present problems regarding its reliability. To improve data quality, researchers may use scoring rules that reward ...respondents so that it is most profitable for them to tell the truth. However, if the subjects are not well informed about the topic or if they do not pay sufficient attention, they will produce data that could not be dependably used for decision-making even though subjects gave their honest answer. In this paper we show how meta-predictions (respondents' predictions about choices of others) can be used for identification of respondents who produce dependable data. We use purchase intention survey, a popular method to elicit early adoption forecasts for a new concept, as a test bed for our approach. We present results from three online experiments, demonstrating that corrected purchase intentions are closer to the real outcomes.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
This paper explores the effectiveness of a recently introduced innovation subsidy program targeted at SMEs in Croatia. Three aspects of program additionality were evaluated: input, output and ...behavioral aspects. Both qualitative and survey research was employed, and four case studies with selected recipient companies were conducted. This study is a response to the policy-makers' need for early program assessment. It attempts to show that even with early evaluation and small population of recipients it is possible to gain insight into program effectiveness. The analysis suggests that the effects of programs targeted at innovative SMEs might need to be evaluated differently than general subsidies. This is especially evident in the evaluation of input additionality. The analysis indicates that SMEs which started with a higher R&D capability tend to increase R&D intensity while participating in the program. The program raised R&D and innovation capability of the participating SMEs, but commercialization of project results remains a concern. PUBLICATION ABSTRACT
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CEKLJ, NUK, ODKLJ, UL, UM, UPUK
Understanding forces that contribute to the success of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) is very important, as these enterprises are vital for both developed and developing economies. Since ...innovativeness is among the most important means through which such businesses contribute to economic growth, numerous research studies were conducted to determine which factors positively impact SME's innovative efforts. This is an even more important issue for developing economies, where SMEs are often faced with inadequate infrastructure. Since there is a lack of studies on SME innovation in developing economies, often policy in such countries is based on findings from developed countries.
In this paper, we explore factors that drive innovation activities in SMEs in a small emerging transition economy (Croatia), and compare it with findings from developed economies. In addition to factors used in most previous studies, we consider market scope, firm's market orientation and presence of strategic, managerial and marketing changes. We find that most factors that were found to be important in developed economies are important in developing economies as well. In addition to that, market scope was discovered to be a very important factor in both product and process innovation. Implementing corporate changes has positive impact on radical product innovation while implementing new organizational structures has positive effect on incremental innovation. When investigating determinants of product innovation, we distinguish new products of low novelty from new products of high novelty, and show that they need to be supported by different policies. To gain additional insight in innovation efforts, we examine obstacles to innovation. We find that firms that report facing obstacles are not less likely to innovate less, which suggests that innovators are able to work around obstacles without damaging effects to innovation. This study is based on a postal survey of 448 SMEs in Croatia, which was performed in 2004.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
Innovation development is a very complex and risky activity that requires adequate financial resources and appropriate skills and knowledge. Due to the complexity of the development process, ...innovation project can be either delayed or abandoned. In this paper we investigate factors that make it possible for small and medium enterprises (SME) that experienced delays or abandonment to continue innovating. While in SMEs weak resources and capabilities contribute to occurrence of development problems, this study suggests that SMEs can enhance their efficiency to produce innovative output by improving their capabilities (external or internal). These capabilities augment the value of resources and can be acquired through external collaboration, non-technological innovation or former innovations. These capabilities have larger effect on the development of new services than on new products.
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BFBNIB, NUK, PILJ, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
This paper aims to develop the insights into Bayesian truth serum (BTS) mechanism by postulating a sequence of seven natural conditions reminiscent of axioms in information theory. The condition that ...reduces a larger family of mechanisms to BTS is additivity, akin to the axiomatic development of entropy. The seven conditions identify BTS as the unique scoring rule for ranking respondents in situations in which respondents are asked to choose an alternative from a finite set and provide predictions of their peers' propensities to choose, for finite or infinite sets of respondents.
During the economic slowdown caused by the financial crisis in 2008, grants for entrepreneurs were made available to support economic development. Whether such a policy instrument is effective for ...business development is a highly relevant question in the aftermath of the COVID-19. We evaluate the causal effects of small business development matching grants using a quasi-experimental approach. The grants were exclusively targeted to women entrepreneurs and provided during the recession after the financial crisis. Our findings demonstrate an increase in bank loans and a positive impact on turnover, value-added, capital, employment, and overall factor productivity for more experienced women entrepreneurs. As the grants are too small to have direct economic effects or indirect effects via the certification effect, they alleviate time and information constraints of women entrepreneurs. The cost-benefit analysis shows an increase in value-added that outweighs the scheme-related costs.
Plain English Summary
This study evaluates the effect of small public grants for women entrepreneurs. Grants were used for childcare and business consultancy costs to alleviate time and information constraints of women entrepreneurs. Benefiting from these grants resulted in higher bank loans. The women entrepreneurs on average invested more money in capital and had better performance measures like turnover and value-added. The effect was particularly evident among more experienced women entrepreneurs. The cost-benefit analysis shows grant-induced increase in value-added outweighs the scheme-related costs. The study implies small public grants for women entrepreneurs increase small firms’ growth, and these grants are in addition a cost-effective policy tool.
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CEKLJ, EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
In this paper we will investigate the effects of direct grants and tax incentives on recipient small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Direct grants and tax incentives are two different public ...instruments used to correct market failure and facilitate innovation through lowering the cost of R&D. Although large and small firms innovate in different ways, so far limited empirical evidence has been reported with respect to the effectiveness of public R&D instruments for SMEs. Our data suggests that direct subsidies used alone or with tax incentives strengthen the R&D orientation of the SME as well as some aspects of innovation output and absorptive capacity. Although the effects of policy measures are significant when comparison is made to firms that did not use any of the two instruments, not much difference is found when users of direct grants are compared to those who used both the grants and the tax incentives. This result indicates the existence of limitations in the use of tax incentives by SMEs, and thus suggests that subsidies may be the primary instrument in SMEs.
•Public instruments strengthen the R&D orientation of the SME as well as the innovation output.•Public instruments improve absorptive capacity, but do not impact all its aspects equally.•Increase in absorptive capacity may enable SMEs to permanently move onto a higher level of innovation ability.•Data suggests that subsidies may be the primary stimulating policy instrument for SMEs.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
In this paper, we examine the effects of EU policy schemes that support innovation in small and medium-sized enterprises. Since the effectiveness of innovation schemes can be expected to differ ...across Europe as entrepreneurship and innovation tend to be more intense in more developed regions, we postulate that the effect of EU instruments on additionality increases with the level of development. We offer a multi-country perspective using two waves of Community Innovation Survey data (CIS 2008 and CIS 2012). We find that the impact of EU funding depends on the level of country’s innovativeness: both national and EU public schemes exhibit smaller additionality in less developed countries, while crowding-out is observed only in recently joined EU members.
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