CPB Document 140
The effecs of the innovation voucher 2004 and 2005
Effect on innovation inputs and innovation outputs (only in Dutch)
ISBN: 90-5833-312-4
February 2007
Fur more information, please contact: Björn Vroomen
The Dutch innovation voucher aims at stimulating the interaction between small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and public-research institutes. The voucher is a credit note of 7,500 euro which an SME can use to commission a study on innovation opportunities by a public research institute. We estimate the effect of the innovation voucher using telephone-survey data from SMEs that applied for a voucher in 2004 and 2005. The analysis employs the fact that the vouchers have been assigned randomly by means of a lottery. We find some evidence for a positive effect on improvements in production processes, but no evidence for effects on product innovation, product improvements, and process innovation. Thanks to the voucher, more SMEs commission a study to public-research institutes. This effect seems to be once-only: SMEs do not cooperate more often with public institutes in the following year and a half. Our findings should be interpreted with care, because of the possible selective non-response in the survey. For example, half of the SMEs with a 2004 voucher did not respond to the interview. Therefore, effects for the total population may differ.
Key words: policy evaluation, innovation, social experiment
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