Lasse Becker

Dissertation Topic
Effects of Federal Structures on Public Innovation Support

Brief Description
Public innovation support claims to reach out to firms facing barriers to innovate, especially smaller firms. Earlier studies showed that governmental programmes do not fulfil those aims. But the distinctions between different political levels introducing programmes are rarely analysed. The project therefore analyses the different characteristics of firms supported by either the regional, national or European level and connects it with the literature and evidence on federalism. The evaluation first uses the Mannheim Innovation Panel for empirical evidence in Germany and later the Community Innovation Survey for empirical evidence in Europe. Findings show that the three different levels of support reach firms with different characteristics. The regional level in federal and semi-federal countries reaches SMEs as firms with barriers to innovate, significantly better than other levels. But the effectiveness of the public innovation support framework is questionable after the analysis. Therefore a conflict of aims between a broader variety of firms and a more effective innovation framework has to be considered by policy makers.

Period of Dissertation
2009-2015