Die Auswirkungen öffentlicher Gründungsförderung auf das Überleben und Wachstum junger Unternehmen

In this paper we examine causal effects of German public assistance programs for young firms administered by the Deutsche Ausgleichsbank (DtA). The empirical analysis is based on a comprehensive data set with information from the DtA data base that contains all assistance contracts between 1990 and 1999 and the ZEW Entrepreneurship Study built up at the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW). We focus on medium-term programm effects on the survival chances and the employment growth of assisted firms. To estimate causal effects a non-parametric matching procedure is used to draw an adequate control group from the pool of all available non-assisted firms for comparison with the treatment group of assisted firms. The empirical analysis shows significant positive effects of public assistance on the survival chances and the employment growth of young German firms.