| The goal of this dissertation is to determine the longer term (5-10 year) causal impact of federal R&D subsidies on firms' survival outcomes and commercialization behavior. The data are small firms which applied to the 1998-2000 Advanced Technology Program (ATP) competitions. A variant of the research design pioneered by Heckman (1979) allows for inherent pre-award differences between awarded and non-awarded firms to be taken into account. This dissertation finds that receiving an ATP award has a positive and significant causal impact on a firm's survival chances and new product announcements, but not on the more general likelihood of it commercializing any of its research. |
