Impact analysis of technological public services supplied to local firms: a methodology

The aim of this work is to present a methodology useful to verify the impact of public interventions directed to support the technological innovation in local groups of SMEs. In the last decades, in several agglomerations of firms, some difficulties emerged, related to the small-medium enterprises gaps in innovation, to their low competitiveness and to the rising of distinct historical heritages in specific areas. To overcome them, some public interventions have been put into place, aimed at supporting the local units’ development, and at sustaining the growth of the area. The work examines two central points of this mechanism. Is it possible to evaluate the effects and the utility of the above mentioned public actions on the involved SMEs? Which is the methodology that is appropriate for such an evaluation? In the economic literature these questions are linked to the “evaluation problem”. This work suggests four methodologies (statistical - descriptive analysis and the application of regression, Probit and difference in difference models) to achieve these targets and, before that, it discusses the type of data that should be collected to apply them.