Small Business Economics

, Volume 49, Issue 2, pp 445–467 | Cite as

Exploring the link between innovation and growth in Chilean firms

Article
First Online:
Accepted:

Abstract

We investigate the relation between the introduction of innovation and subsequent firm growth employing a dataset representative of the Chilean productive structure. By means of quantile treatment effects (QTE), we estimate the effect of the introduction of innovation by comparing firms with a similar propensity to innovate for different quantiles of the firm growth distribution. Our results indicate that process innovation positively affects sales growth for those firms located at the 75th and 90th percentiles. Contrarily, product innovation appears not to be a driver of firm performance. We also find that process innovation benefits mature firms at higher quantiles while it positively affects young firms located at low-medium quantiles.

Keywords

Innovation Firm growth Chile Firm age Quantile treatment effects 

JEL Classification

C14 C21 C22 D22 O31 
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Notes

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Federico Tamagni, Angelo Secchi, Stefano Bianchini, Le Li, Nanditha Mathew, Ernest Migueléz, Andrin Spescha, Lorenzo Napolitano and Emanuele Pugliese as well as two anonymous referees for their helpful comments and suggestions. We are also deeply indebted to Werner Bönte (the editor). Thanks are also due to the participants to the DRUID Academy conference at Bordeaux University and to the 3rd Ph.D. workshop in Economics of Innovation, Complexity and Knowledge at Collegio Carlo Alberto in Turin.

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© Springer Science+Business Media New York 2017

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Scuola Superiore Sant’AnnaPisaItaly

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