Assessing the regional impacts of policies to develop entrepreneurial ecosystems in three EU countries

Abstract

his paper measures the economic impacts of policies aimed at developing entrepreneurial ecosystems in three European Union countries through the combined use of the GMR impact assessment model and the REDI entrepreneurship index. The REDI index is capable of modelling the effect of policies aimed at different aspects of regional entrepreneurial ecosystems on the entrepreneurial level in a complex way, while the GMR model is able to compute the economic impact of changes in the level of entrepreneurship. On the one hand, the study shows that entrepreneurship development policies need to be tailored to local characteristics, as they can be effective by developing different aspects in different regions. On the other hand, it is also shown how the economic effects of developing entrepreneurship are influenced by other regional factors (e.g. human capital). Finally, based on these findings, the paper shows that policies aimed at developing the national level of entrepreneurship produce greater economic effects, but at the cost of increasing territorial disparities. Although policies aimed at developing entrepreneurship in regions lagging behind are effective in improving regional convergence, the national economic impact of these policies is limited.
The impact of reindustrialization on the convergence paths of Hungarian regions