The innovative impact of public research institutes: Evidence from Italy

This paper leverages on the establishment of Italian Institute Technology (IIT) as a policy change useful to understand causal effect public-funded research centres regional innovative capacity. By relying Synthetic Control Method (SCM) approach and NUTS-3 panel data, empirical results suggest that IIT has positively impacted innovation high-skilled human capital, well growth. The also provides evidence knowledge spillovers from within hosting region. Finally, these are robust variety placebo permutation tests several sensitivity checks, or when considering Difference-in-Differences (DiD) approach.