European Institute of Innovation and Technology grants as a ‘mission-oriented’ policy: a preliminary quantitative analysis for the euro area and Italy

This paper focuses on the development of the European Institute of Innovation & Technology and its political economy after following the Lisbon European Council. We analyse the aggregate impact of EIT grants on the euro area’s GDP (17 countries) using a SVAR technique and we perform a similar time-series exercise for Italy, as a robustness check, for the period 2014Q1-2019Q4. Results indicate that ‘EIT expenditures’ have a positive impact on GDP, both in the case of the euro area and Italy. Such ‘mission-oriented’ spending at the continental level could be a way forward for the eurozone.