Abstract
We explore how the implementation of a set of policy programmes over a period of six years induced some “emergent” learning effects which had not originally been envisaged by policymakers. This way, we show how policy evaluation can be used not only to assess the expected impact of policy interventions but also to discover their unexpected behavioural effects, and therefore provides an important instrument to guide the design of future interventions.
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Notes
- 1.
Interestingly, these interventions had not been planned at the beginning of the programming period. Rather the region was able to procure additional funds that enabled it to implement a further RPIA and two more waves of the SPD line supporting innovation networks (programme 171).
- 2.
In terms of economic activity (based on Nace Rev. 1.1 codes) and size, the largest share of participating enterprises were manufacturing companies (68 %): of these, 21.8 % were micro and small firms in the traditional industries of the region (marble production and carving, textiles, mechanics, jewelery), while the remaining share were micro firms in the service sector (Nace Rev. 1.1:72). The latter were an active group, with 1.8 projects per agent on average. The share of participating enterprises varied in the different programmes, ranging from a minimum of 37.1 % in programme 172_2002 to a maximum of 100 % in the smallest programme (171_2004).
- 3.
To check whether the “learning effects” induced by the policy were effectively due to the policy participation rather than to joint participation to other projects, we experimented with including a dummy variable equal to 1 if the organization had already collaborated with another participant in the policy programmes but outside of the set of regional policies, in both regressions. The inclusion of this variable reduced the number of observations to 182 due to missing values, did not change the sign and significance of the coefficients, and was itself not significant. Hence we did not include it in the final analysis.
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Caloffi, A., Rossi, F., Russo, M. (2013). What Networks to Support Innovation? Evidence from a Regional Policy Framework. In: Gilbert, T., Kirkilionis, M., Nicolis, G. (eds) Proceedings of the European Conference on Complex Systems 2012. Springer Proceedings in Complexity. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-00395-5_108
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-00395-5_108
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