Essays on Young Firms' Dynamics

Download or read book Essays on Young Firms' Dynamics written by Pietro Santoleri and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In light of the prominent role played by young firms in shaping the creative destruction process and contributing to overall job creation, this thesis provides novel evidence on the dynamics of these segment of the productive system. In particular, the dissertation revolves around the following topics: i) the role played by innovation activities in fostering employment growth in young firms; ii) the impact of the economic recession of the growth rates of young vs. small firms; iii) the role played by public policies in supporting innovative entrants. In more detail, Chapter 1 examines the under-researched nexus between innovation activities and employment growth in newly born firms. Based on a representative dataset for a cohort of US firms born in 2004, the results highlight the relevance of R&D and patenting to foster growth and, especially, high-growth performance for newly-born firms. Chapter 2 provides additional evidence on the relationship between innovation and growth by using Chilean data and focus on how returns to innovation differ for young and mature firms. Results show that innovation benefits high-growth firms. However, these results materialize especially for mature firms and in the case of process innovation whereas innovative activities do not appear to be a prerequisite for high-growth performance in young businesses. These findings highlight how the returns to innovation might be context specific. Chapter 3 focuses on the impact of the double-dip recession on the growth performance of young vis-à-vis small firms. Using data for ten Eurozone countries, the findings show that small firms were not particularly affected - if anything they performed better - whereas young firms experienced a marked decrease in their growth rates. In the analysis we also find that the financial constraint channel appears to be one of the forces responsible for the above results. In Chapter 4 the main focus is the investigation of the role of public policy in providing support for the performance of innovative new firms. In particular, we investigate the impact of a recent policy implemented in Italy (i.e. the “Start-up Act”). The analysis indicates an overall positive effect of the program on a wide range of firm-level outcomes.