Do Science and Technology Parks Work as Drivers of Firm Innovation? Empirical Evidence From Portugal

Abstract

Science and technology parks were conceived to promote firm performance and innovation, and they have become increasingly important in local and regional development policies. However, there are few empirical studies on their effectiveness as drivers of firm innovation, and existing studies have also reported mixed results, which could be due to small sample sizes and biases in the selection of control samples. To overcome these constraints, we analyse a sample of 553 firms located in parks and a control sample of firms located outside, selected through propensity score matching, which is a novel contribution to the literature. Portugal, a lower-middle income country representative of the European periphery, is used as case study. The results indicate that location in parks positively and significantly affects having some patent activity, as well as the number of patents filed, but no significant effect is found for patents granted.