Regional policies for innovation: the case of technology districts in Italy

ABSTRACT

Regional policies for innovation: the case of technology districts in Italy. Regional Studies. This paper studies a policy tool implemented in Italy in the last decade to foster local innovation activity called technology districts. First, it examines the characteristics of technology districts and those of the firms within them. Next, it assesses the performance of district firms. The South of Italy has more technology districts, but they are small, poorly sectorially diversified and far from the economic structure of the area. Firms that did join a district had previously been, on average, larger, more innovative and profitable, and show also higher leverage than the others. After the institution of a district the performance of the firms that joined it did not differ significantly from that of similar firms that did not.

摘要

促进创新的区域政策：意大利的科技区之案例研究。Regional Studies。本文研究过去十年间，在意大利执行的一个名为科技区的地方创新活动促进之政策工具。本文首先检视科技区以及位于区内的企业之特徵。本文接着评估该区企业的表现。南意大利具有更多的科技区，但它们规模小，部门间的多样化不足，并且与该区的经济结构相距甚远。过往加入科技区的企业，平均而言较大、较具创新且更能获利，同时较其他企业显示出更高的槓杆程度。有了科技区的制度之后，选择加入的厂商之表现与其他未加入的类似厂商相较之下，并无显着的不同。

RÉSUMÉ

Les politiques régionales en faveur de l’innovation: étude de cas des districts technologiques italiens. Regional Studies. Cet article étudie un outil politique mis en oeuvre en Italie pendant la dernière décennie dans le but d’encourager l’activité locale d’innovation, à savoir les districts dits technologiques. Dans un premier temps on examine les caractéristiques des districts technologiques et celles des entreprises qui s’y installent. Il s’ensuit une évaluation de la performance des entreprises du district. Le sud de l’Italie est mieux doté de districts technologiques, mais ils sont petits, mal diversifiés sur le plan sectoriel et sont loin de refléter la structure économique de la zone. Auparavant, les entreprises qui se sont implantées sur un district ont été en moyenne plus grandes, plus innovatrices et plus rentables, et montrent aussi un effet de levier plus important que les autres. Suite à l’établissement d’un district, la performance des entreprises qui s’y sont installées n’a pas beaucoup différé de celle des entreprises similaires qui ne s’y sont pas implantées.

ZUSAMMENFASSUNG

Regionale Politikmaßnahmen für Innovation: der Fall der Technologiebezirke in Italien. Regional Studies. In diesem Beitrag untersuchen wir ein politisches Instrument mit der Bezeichnung ‘Technologiebezirke’, das im letzten Jahrzehnt in Italien zur Förderung von lokalen Innovationsaktivitäten umgesetzt wurde. Zunächst analysieren wir die Merkmale der Technologiebezirke sowie der in ihnen vorhandenen Firmen. Anschließend bewerten wir die Leistung der Firmen des Bezirks. Der Süden Italiens verfügt über mehr Technologiebezirke, die allerdings klein ausfallen, eine schlechte Branchendiversifizierung aufweisen und weit entfernt von der Wirtschaftsstruktur des Gebiets liegen. Die Firmen, die einem Bezirk beigetreten sind, waren zuvor im Durchschnitt größer, innovativer und rentabler und verfügen zudem über mehr Einfluss als die anderen. Nach der Gründung eines Bezirks änderte sich die Leistung der beigetretenen Firmen nicht signifikant von der Leistung ähnlicher, nicht beigetretener Firmen.

RESUMEN

Políticas regionales para la innovación: el caso de los distritos tecnológicos en Italia. Regional Studies. En este artículo analizamos una herramienta política denominada distrito tecnológico que se ha puesto en práctica en Italia en la última década para fomentar la actividad innovadora de ámbito local. En primer lugar, examinamos las características de los distritos tecnológicos así como de las empresas que existen dentro de ellos. A continuación, evaluamos el rendimiento de las empresas de los distritos. El sur de Italia tiene más distritos tecnológicos, pero son pequeños, mal diversificados sectorialmente y lejos de la estructura económica del área. Las empresas que se unieron a un distrito habían sido antes más grandes, innovadoras y rentables de promedio, y ejercen más influencia que el resto. Después de la creación de un distrito, no variaba de forma significativa el rendimiento de las empresas incorporadas en comparación con otras empresas similares no incorporadas.

KEYWORDS:

• technology districts
• innovation
• patent
• public policies
• matching
• differences-in-differences

关键词:

• 科技区；创新；专利；公共政策；配对；差异中的差异

MOTS-CLÉS:

• districts technologiques
• innovation
• brevet
• politiques publiques
• appariement
• approche de l’écart des différences

SCHLÜSSELWÖRTER:

• Technologiebezirke
• Innovation
• Patente
• öffentliche Politikmaßnahmen
• Übereinstimmung
• Difference-in-Differences

PALABRAS CLAVES:

• distritos tecnológicos
• innovación
• patente
• políticas públicas
• comparación
• diferencias en diferencias

JEL:

• H2
• O31
• R0

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors thank Alessio D’Ignazio, Alessandro Fabbrini, Roberto Gabriele, Simone Martelli, Silvia Magri, Diego Scalise, Alessandra Staderini, two anonymous referees, and the participants at the Bank of Italy’s workshops held in Rome (September 2012) and Perugia (December 2012), and of the annual conference of AISRE (Palermo, 2013) and ERSA (St Petersburg, 2014), for their valuable comments and suggestions. The collection of the data on technology districts’ firms was made with the important contribution of Stefano Maiolo, Alessandro De Iudicibus and Francesco Termite, who the authors thank. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the respective institutions. The usual disclaimer applies.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

SUPPLEMENTAL DATA

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at https://dx.doi.org10.1080/00343404.2016.1255321

Notes

1. For recent empirical surveys on the impact of R&D incentives, see Zúñiga-Vicente, Alonso-Borrego, Forcadell, and Galàn (2014) and Becker (2015); and on the econometric methods, see Cerulli (2010).

2. In Italy similar policies include the science and technology parks, and the more recent poles of innovation and poles of excellence.

3. For recent assessments of different regional innovation policies in Italy, see Corsino, Gabriele, and Giunta (2012), Fantino and Cannone (2013), Bronzini and Iachini (2014) and Bronzini and Piselli (2016).

4. There are three main strategic sectors of intervention: (1) environment, energy and transport; (2) agri-food and wealth; and (3) production systems, biotechnology, new materials and nanotechnology, ICT and cultural activities.

5. This is a minor share of public funds used for TDs. The incomplete knowledge of the amount of disbursed funds is a limitation of the paper which prevents exercises like cost–benefit analysis or dose–response function.

6. It was not possible to collect the balance sheet data for the districts established in Emilia-Romagna (NE) because of some shortcomings in the information: the fiscal codes of the firms for the ‘advanced mechanics’ district were not available in the dataset provided by the ministry; the authors do not know the year of establishment for the ‘biomedical’ district (the website of the district reports that it has not yet been recognized by the ministry).

7. The geographical areas are: North-West (Piedmont, Liguria, Valle d’Aosta, Lombardy); North-East (Veneto, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Trentino-Alto Adige, Emilia-Romagna); Centre (Tuscany, Umbria, Marche, Lazio); South (Molise, Abruzzo, Campania, Puglia, Basilicata, Calabria, Sicily, Sardinia).

8. The activities carried out in the districts often reflect some features of the geographical areas in which they are located. Greater details on this aspect can be found in section A1 in Appendix A in the supplemental data online and in Bertamino, Bronzini, De Maggio, and Revelli (2016).

9. The authors considered just once the data of the firms belonging to more than one district. The analysis includes only the firms with positive assets and sales (or, in alternative, the added value).

10. Data are not reported but are available from the authors upon request.

11. For more information on the dataset, see Bertamino et al. (2016).

12. For greater details, see Bertamino et al. (2016).

13. Investments are calculated by the Cerved dataset.

14. The exercise was repeated on each single balance sheet item of ROA components: positive effects are found, even if not statistically significant, for all the considered items. This would probably mean that the positive effect of the adhesion to a district on the total profitability is the result of the cumulative effect on each item (depreciation of fixed assets, financial revenues and costs, other revenues and costs) rather than a significant effect on a single item.

15. Excluding the outliers, in the Centre there were, respectively, 98 district firms and 70 non-district small firms.