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Conclusions: Implications for State Aid Design and Implementation, and Lessons Learned (Step 4)
The objective of the ex post evaluation of selected state aid schemes in Romania is to assess whether and to what extent the objectives of each aid scheme have been fulfilled and to measure their spillover effects as well as the effects on competition outcomes. The analysis applied rigorous microeconometric techniques to assess the relative positive and negative direct and indirect effects stemming from the schemes.
RESULTS The de minimis scheme to incentivize access to finance for MSMEs (the RCG scheme) Regarding the Romanian Counter-Guarantee Fund (RCG) scheme, the analysis found evidence that the scheme fulfilled its objective of supporting entrepreneurship in Romania. Results showed that the scheme increased the employment and turnover of beneficiary firms and reduced the probability of aided firms closing. Except for the revenue-based measure of total factor productivity (TFPR), all the other result indicators applied to quantify the direct effects pointed to the economic additionality of the scheme. Specifically, employment and turnover have increased (by 43 percent and 148 percent, respectively) as a result of the scheme, while the probability of aided firms closing has decreased by 23 percent. All these estimates were statistically significant, and all the robustness checks validated these findings. The analysis showed that the positive direct effects of the RCG scheme varied across regions and sectors. The scheme’s impacts varied across regions, with scheme beneficiaries in the North-West and Bucuresti-Ilfov regions—which together account for 46 percent of all beneficiaries—experiencing large increases in terms of turnover and employment. There was also heterogeneity of scheme effects across sectors. For example, the wholesale and retail trade sector, which accounts for the largest proportion of beneficiaries (30.6 percent), experienced the smallest increase in turnover and employment and the smallest reduction in the probability of closing. On the other hand, the other services sector
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