Innovation Policy and Employment: Evidence from an Impact Evaluation in Argentina

This paper presents the evaluation of the Enterprise Restructuring Support Program in Argentina. The aim of the program was to increase the competitiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises by cofinancing technical assistance that can be classified as either support for process innovation or support for product innovation. Although these types of programs do not primarily aim to create jobs, they are implemented assuming that they do, or at least that they do not destroy jobs. This paper tests this assumption. It compares the impact of each type of support on employment and the type of employment measured by the wages paid by firms to their employees. To control for self-selection into the program, propensity score matching and difference in differences were combined. The study found that by supporting both process and product innovation-related activities, the program was able to create more and better jobs. The effect on wages was also found to be higher when supporting product innovation activities.