R&D Subsidies and Firm-Level Productivity: Evidence from France

This paper attempts to provide a new insight into the relationship between R&D subsidies and firm-level productivity. The empirical analysis evaluates the productivity of firms involved in a European program of public R&D grants called Eureka. The findings suggest that the Eureka firms on average experience productivity gains towards the end of the 3-years grant period. However, the average increase in productivity hides substantial firm heterogeneity. Namely it hides that low productive firms gain more from an R&D subsidy than high productive firms. The empirical analysis is conducted by using propensity score matching and a difference-in-differences estimation method to control for potential endogeneity issues.