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- Gustafsson, Anders, 1985-
(författare)
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Industrial policy : Political considerations, payoffs, and peculiar incentives
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis consists of four independent papers. They deal with some aspects of industrial policy, namely public supports to firms that are intended to support innovation and growth at the firm level, using Swedish data. Two papers study the efficiency of current Swedish policies by estimating the effects of subsidies and public loans to firms, respectively.The results on subsidized firms suggests that there are some positive effects on profits and productivity, but these diminish and disappear over time. The results of public loans are more positive with long lasting effects on productivity and sales but only for smaller firms. Public loans do not lead to an increase in the number of employees in the firms that receive them.The third paper studies the selection of firms for subsidies and the incentives firms have to seek them. By modeling the decision to seek subsidies as a trade off between producing in the market and seeking grants, the results suggest that firms with low market productivity might self-select into seeking grants. The empirical results are in line with the theoretical predictions.The final paper studies the incentives that politicians have to implement programs and policies that they know will be inefficient. Since a lack of political action can make the politicians look incompetent, incumbentens have incentives to implement policies even though they know that these will be ineffective, to signal competence towards the voters.
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| 2. |
- Gustafsson, Anders, et al.
(författare)
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Subsidy entrepreneurs
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In this paper, we study the selection, incentives, and characteristics of small and medium sized firms (SMEs) that apply for and eventually receive one or multiple governmental grants intended to stimulate innovation and growth. The analysis departs from a rent-seeking model in which firms are free to allocate their effort between production and rent-seeking. We show that highly productive firms choose not to seek grants, while moderately productive firms allocate a share of their effortto rent-seeking, and low-productivity firms are incentivized to allocate most, if not all, of their effort to seeking grants and can thus be called subsidy entrepreneurs. Due to their large efforts in seeking grants, these low-productivity firms also havea relatively high probability of receiving grants. Using detailed data over all grants administered by the three largest grant-distributing agencies in Sweden, the empirical analysis suggests that supported firms have relatively low productivity, high wages, and a larger share of workers with higher education than non-supported firms. These characteristics become further pronounced as we move from single to multiple supported firms, thus providing support for the notion of subsidy entrepreneurs.
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| 3. |
- Gustafsson, Anders, 1985-, et al.
(författare)
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Subsidy Entrepreneurs : an Inquiry into Firms Seeking Public Grants
- 2020
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Ingår i: Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade. - : Springer. - 1566-1679 .- 1573-7012. ; 20, s. 439-478
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper studies the incentives and characteristics of firms that apply for, and eventually receive, one or multiple governmental grants intended to stimulate innovation and growth. The analysis departs from a contest model in which entrepreneurs are free to allocate their effort between production and seeking grants. The results suggest that highly productive entrepreneurs abstain from seeking grants, moderately productive firms allocate a share of their effort to grant seeking, and low-productivity firms allocate most resources to seeking grants. Due to their efforts in seeking grants, these low-productive subsidy entrepreneurs also have a relatively high probability of receiving the grants. Using comprehensive data over grants from the three largest grant-distributing agencies in Sweden, we find concordant evidence of a negative relation between the probability of receiving a grant and firm productivity. As we go from single- to multiple-grant-supported firms, this negative relation becomes more pronounced.
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