The Italian Start Up Act: a microeconometric program evaluation

This paper analyzes the impact of the Italian Start Up Act which entered into force in October 2012. This public policy provides a unique bundle of benefits, such as tax incentives, public loan guarantees, and a more flexible labor law, for firms registered as “innovative startups” in Italy. This legislation has been implemented by the Italian government to increase innovativeness of small and young enterprises by facilitating access to (external) capital and (high-skilled) labor. Consequently, the goal of our evaluation is to assess the impact of the policy on equity, debt, and employment. Using various conditional difference-in-difference models, we find that the Italian innovative startup policy has met its primary objectives. The econometric results strongly suggest that Italian innovative startups are more successful in obtaining equity and debt capital and they also hire more employees because of the program participation.