Impact Evaluation in a Multiple Program World

Abstract

Firms get assistance from different public and private entities and these alternative assistances can affect export outcomes. Ignoring other interventions implies leaving unaddressed relevant policy relevant questions, such as whether there are complementarities among programs that could be explicitly exploited through an adequate design of policy instruments, their coordination and sequencing; and even what would an appropriate institutional organization of public support to the private sector to maximize potential synergies (i.e., single agencies with divisions vs. articulated separated agencies, cross-participation of managers in related agencies, rotation of public officers among entities, etc.). This study is a first step towards closing such a gap in the empirical literature and providing answers to those open policy questions. In making this move forward, we examine the interplay between export and innovation promotion programs.