In this work, the determinants of public expenditure on education are investigated for the 27 European Union countries. After having derived a demand model of the public expenditure structure from an extended version of the median voter model, I estimate the demand equations system on data from the COFOG-Eurostat dataset. The empirical results suggest that public expenditure on education is found to be influenced not only by economic determinants (relative prices), but also by institutional factors.
We analyze the different characteristics of companies, and in particular of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), having access to forms of public subsidy or private financing. We then examine one of the most widespread public subsidies aimed at young and innovative SMEs of the European Union (i.e., Horizon 2020) and compare it with Venture Capital, a financial instrument typically oriented to fund equity of similar companies. Conversely, by comparing the characteristics of the companies that receive one or the other types of instruments, we find significant differences in the corporate characteristics of the funded companies both in terms of size (revenues, assets) and development phase. ; Questo articolo analizza le differenti caratteristiche delle imprese, e in particolare delle PMI, che accedono a forme di sovvenzionamento pubblico o finanziamento privato. In quest'ottica, si prende in esame uno dei sussidi pubblici più diffusi orientato alle PMI giovani e innovative dell'Unione Europea (Orizzonte 2020) e lo si confronta con il finanziamento di Venture Capital, uno strumento tipicamente orientato a finanziare l'equity di aziende analoghe. Confrontando le caratteristiche delle imprese che ricevono l'uno o l'altro tipo di strumento, riscontriamo al contrario differenze significative nelle caratteristiche aziendali delle imprese finanziate dai due strumenti, sia in termini dimensionali (ricavi, asset) che di fase di sviluppo.
