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In this paper I discuss how different forms of industrial policy in Portugal are subjected to different policy risks, and which institutional solutions can be adopted in order to improve the effectiveness and legitimacy of these forms of government intervention. Our analysis emphasises the differences between four instances of industrial policy according to two dimensions: the number of (potential) beneficiaries targeted by the policy and the diversity of public agencies in possession of the relevant skills for its implementation. These factors help to determine the level of scrutiny to which public policies are subjected, whether by private actors or within the State apparatus. Both sources of scrutiny help to minimise the risks of capture of public resources by private interests and to foster institutional learning processes that promote the effectiveness of policies. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersion

This paper assesses the impact of SI QREN – a set of enterprise support mechanisms that were in place in Portugal between 2007 and 2013 – on firm performance. For this purpose, we used an unprecedented set of firm-level information, gathered from different institutional sources. These data allowed to control for several determinants of performance that are usually ignored in similar studies, and to assess the impact of the policy in various dimensions of enterprise performance, including: investment, financial situation, human capital, innovation, internationalization, firm growth, competitiveness, eco-efficiency, job quality, intra-firm income distribution, and gender equality. In order to address the selection bias that is inherent to the policy under analysis we estimated the impacts using the bias corrected matching estimator put forward by Abadie and Imbens (2002, 2011), producing results based on both the Propensity-Score Matching and Malahanobis Distance Matching methods, for robustness purposes. Our results suggest that SI QREN accomplished its main policy goals, as they are identified in the theory of change of the policy. Generally speaking, the impacts of SI QREN remain positive and statistically significant in the mid-term, after the supported projects have been completed. We also find that SI QREN is less effective in inducing additional investment in firms that have easier access to external finance. ; FCT

State intervention in support of specific productive activities aiming to foster structural change (i.e., industrial policy) has been a controversial topic in both academic and political debates. In spite of many years of theoretical and empirical research, such debate has not reached definite conclusions. Recently, the debate on industrial policy has been experiencing a change of focus, falling away from the rationale of such public interventions to focus on the institutional conditions that promote the success of the policies pursued. In this paper we analyse the conditions for effective and legitimate industrial policies, examining four cases of such type of interventions in Portugal. Our analysis emphasises the differences between the various interventions according to two dimensions: the number of (potential) beneficiaries targeted by the policy and the diversity of public agencies in possession of relevant skills for its implementation. These factors help to determine the level of scrutiny to which public policies are subjected, either by private actors or within the State apparatus. Both sources of scrutiny help to minimise the risks of capture of public resources by private interests, and to foster institutional learning processes that promote the effectiveness of policies. ; FCT.

This paper uses a counterfactual approach to assess the impact of the main Operational Program of the EU Structural Funds in Portugal during the period 2000-2006 (POE/PRIME) on the performance of beneficiary firms. We find that public support to firms' investment increases their likelihood of survival after three years by 11 percentage points, and leads to the net creation of 2.1 additional jobs in the same period. The positive results obtained in our study suggest that the public support to firms' investment in Portugal in 2000-2006 was mostly well designed, at least in the light of the impact dimensions under analysis. The incentives were particularly effective in the case of firms that are typically more fragile (particularly, new firms and/or firms with low financial autonomy). We also find that the support had greater impacts in the case of large firms, and that the average cost per additional job created as a result of incentives was relatively modest ; Observatório do QREN, COMPETE, CCDR Norte, IFDR and FCT

In this paper we estimate the impact on job quality of the direct support to firm- investment projects provided through the EU cohesion policy funds. We use linked employer-employee micro-data, from administrative sources, that cover the universe of Portuguese firms over the years 2000s. The analysis exploits the existence of natural experiment conditions in the form of treatment assignment procedures based on exogenous cut-offs in the ranking of the applicant firms. Our preferred estimation strategy is a dynamic exact matching procedure that is combined with a difference-in-difference scheme to mimic a block-randomised pretest-posttest design. The procedure is adopted separately for each of the successive cohorts of applicants and solves the small sample issues that would be encountered with a multiple-ranking regression discontinuity design. Our results indicate that the firm-level support co-funded by EU structural funds in Portugal has contributed to improving job quality compared to the counterfactual scenario of no public support, with each treated firm creating on average 4.9 additional standard-working-time jobs, 2.9 skilled jobs, and 2.0 permanent contract jobs. We also estimate that the average remuneration per hour in treated firms is €2.2 higher than in similar non-treated applicant firms. These results are adequately robust to a wide range of sensitivity analyses and bear some relevant policy implications for the EU. ; FCT

Countries face a double challenge of unprecedented scale consisting in drastically reducing carbon emissions in the time of a generation, while recovering the economy from the worst pandemic crisis in a century. Innovation is key in the response to this double challenge. Innovation policies are increasingly directed at achieving both goals, as governments seek opportunities for transforming the economic structure along with decarbonization. We raise the question of the effect of the direction in the success of the policies for the sustainability transition to achieve the economic transformation. We start by analyzing the processes of change in the economic structure. We identify three possible strategies of transformation: decarbonization, dematerialization and digitalization. Then we compare the evolution of the economic complexity of Portugal, which aspires to transform its economy, with that of three countries that are respectively reference in each one of the three strategies: Denmark, The Netherlands, and Ireland. Successful strategies evidence specialization in products that involve extensive and sophisticated knowledge, produced with high connectivity to other activities and with low carbon footprint. Based on these results and informed by the theory, we propose a set of conditions—related to the promotion of connectivity to growing sectors, high social return technologies and variety— that need to be aligned in the direction of the policies in order to increase their potential for transformative change. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion