The effects of EU-funded enterprise grants on firms and workers
研究了2004-2014年欧盟结构基金对匈牙利中小企业非偿还拨款的效果，发现补贴增加了就业、销售和劳动生产率，但未显著提升全要素生产率，且工资增长仅惠及高技能工人和管理者。
This paper investigates the effects of non-repayable enterprise grants on Hungarian SMEs, financed from the European Union’s Structural and Cohesion Funds between 2004–2014. Comparing firm- and worker level outcomes of successful and unsuccessful applicants, we find that subsidized firms increase their employment, sales, capital-to-labor ratio and labor productivity, but we find conflicting results for total factor productivity. The skill composition of workers is not affected by the grant, but wages increase, although only for skilled workers and especially managers. These results suggest that the program generates additional investment, but that investment leads to limited technology upgrading at best. According to our simple calculations, the cost of creating an additional job with this program was equivalent to 3 years average wage and each year’s grants contributed to aggregate SME labor productivity growth by 0.2-0.6 percentage points — with an annual cost often in excess of 1 percent of total SME value added.