Publicação
European funds and firm performance
| Resumo: | This paper examines the impact of European Union (EU) funds on the performance of private firms. We exploit a quasi-natural experiment arising from an administrative redrawing of geographical boundaries, which led to a discrete change in regional eligibility? This led to a sudden and substantial increase in access to EU grants directed at firms located in 33 Portuguese municipalities. Using a comprehensive linked employer-employee administrative dataset which covers the universe of private firms between 2003 and 2010, our difference-in-differences estimates uncover a significant and positive causal effect of increased eligibility on firms’ sales, labor productivity, and average wages, while employment is not significantly altered. Although firms’ sales in the non-tradable sectors are positively impacted, firms’ sales in more competitive, tradable, sectors remain unaffected by increased access to EU funds. |
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| Autores principais: | Mesquita, José |
| Outros Autores: | Pereira dos Santos, João; Tavares, José |
| Assunto: | Grants Municipalities Portugal Private firm Regional policy General Business,Management and Accounting Economics and Econometrics |
| Ano: | 2025 |
| País: | Portugal |
| Tipo de documento: | artigo |
| Tipo de acesso: | acesso aberto |
| Instituição associada: | Universidade Nova de Lisboa |
| Idioma: | inglês |
| Origem: | Repositório Institucional da UNL |
| Resumo: | This paper examines the impact of European Union (EU) funds on the performance of private firms. We exploit a quasi-natural experiment arising from an administrative redrawing of geographical boundaries, which led to a discrete change in regional eligibility? This led to a sudden and substantial increase in access to EU grants directed at firms located in 33 Portuguese municipalities. Using a comprehensive linked employer-employee administrative dataset which covers the universe of private firms between 2003 and 2010, our difference-in-differences estimates uncover a significant and positive causal effect of increased eligibility on firms’ sales, labor productivity, and average wages, while employment is not significantly altered. Although firms’ sales in the non-tradable sectors are positively impacted, firms’ sales in more competitive, tradable, sectors remain unaffected by increased access to EU funds. |
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