At the beginning of the month, the government approved the decree law adding to the “cresci Italia” law. The provision includes provisions to encourage innovative "start-ups". According to the explanatory report, "the creation of an ecosystem favorable to innovative start-ups represents for the first time a precise economic policy instrument aimed at promoting growth, the creation of employment, especially youth employment, the attraction of talents and capital from abroad… “. It is worth examining the general issues and then seeing some of the details. As regards the former, it is clear that this policy will not be able to solve either unemployment or unsatisfactory productivity today. In the current context, what is needed is a short-term policy, aimed at reviving aggregate demand which, following the great crisis of 2008 and the subsequent, unfortunate, restrictive provisions (led by the European error of aiming for a balanced budget in a depressive phase) have compromised. There is a serious domestic demand deficit that needs to be filled and since the system, by itself, remains in an equilibrium of underemployment (Keynes teaches) a robust policy from the center is needed that can make it work again for our good instead of for ours bad. This means that action must be taken, first of all at the community level and then at the level of individual states. The technical ministers talk a lot about our presumed productivity deficit, but they don't seem to realize that it is the result of the fall in domestic demand and the consequent low use of factories (evaluable as a first approximation between 70% and 75%) . The government's main effort, also towards a Europe which, as mentioned, appears to be poorly versed in anti-recession policies, must therefore be centered on the short term, leaving aside the sirens which depict competitiveness through astonishing international indicators, all constructed to give a constant , useless, result (see the nice article by Gilles Ardinat on Le Monde diplomatic Of this month).
So: support the question, but which one? Essentially that for investment goods which a Community agreement could temporarily exclude from the parameters assumed to measure the public expenditure which contributes to the annual requirement. In the short term, higher investment spending would give rise to a recovery thanks to multiplier effects; in the long run these will be the investments from which the innovations and therefore the leap in productivity will come. This is the framework in which we must evaluate the measure we are dealing with.
I see a fundamental criticism to be leveled at the text of the decree, articles 25-32. Our bad legislation is long-standing and brings with it a bad way of writing the rules. It is now the most popular to introduce English terms. We speak of "innovative start-up" as if to signify a new phenomenon for Italy. There task force to which the technical government turned for the task to justify the foreign-loving choice because it was forced: "as in the whole world, like all those who make them, we call them start-ups" (page 13 of the report "Restart, Italy!”: English here too…). In reality, start-ups are a well-known phenomenon in our country, where they are commonly called "new businesses" (and if they are new they can only be innovative); 5.700 are founded every week (1.100 if we consider them net of those that have ceased; source: latest Unioncamere data). It would therefore be better to speak of "new high-tech companies", otherwise we might as well throw away our beautiful language. The government's goal is not the (conspicuous) annual flow of new businesses, but only the ones that can be defined as "research intensive". In fact, R&D expenditure must represent at least 30%, a third of the staff must be made up of doctors or PhD students or graduates always employed in research, there must be at least one ownership or license to exploit an industrial property right. Let's see how the field narrows down to include one cream made up of companies that want to produce "important" technological innovations. The objective is more than welcome, but we must place it, I repeat, in a limited context. Today in Italy high technology can be developed by a group of institutes of excellence (mostly universities) and by some (few) large companies.
The government decree effectively establishes a single instrument, tax incentives. In three years (starting from the next) the expenses aimed at subscribing capital shares of these "innovative start-ups" become deductible. Limits are set for each investor of 1,8 million, with shares to be kept in the portfolio for at least two years. Favorable conditions are envisaged for new companies with a social vocation or those focusing on energy. My personal impression is that much more is needed to really and within a reasonable time frame create a "new", consistent, productive structure in addition to the one based on districts and Fourth Capitalism (the only truly competitive one we now have): a program of a I certainly note (also in terms of means) in which large companies must be involved in the first place. Only they are capable of generating that ecosystem that the decree imagines could miraculously arise from simple tax deductions. One solution could be to set an industrial policy on companies with the largest research budgets; they could be "induced" to do so sponsor to "swarms" of "innovative start-ups". A new entrepreneur who wants to grow a company of this type needs capital, but also and above all "advice" or technical and marketing support essential for the development of his promising idea. The "strong" players in this policy would be an authoritative government, some large technological companies (which should stop focusing on cost minimization and focus instead on conquering the markets through the sale of new products), many bodies "facilitators" of the between the small neo-entrepreneur and the big business. The Research & Entrepreneurship Foundation is an example of these possible facilitators, but not the only one. We have centers of excellence in some local poles: in the 2008 Artimino Report 39 poles were identified and in the recent survey presented on 8 October, again in Artimino, by Marco Bellandi and myself it was highlighted how they have achieved significant increases in exports in times of crisis.
The basic question remains: which business model should be the basis of this policy? Giacomo Becattini (For a capitalism with a human face, Bollati Boringhieri 2004) distinguishes two genres: the nucleus of capital enterprise and the life project enterprise. In the first, the founder's goal is simply to make his capital return in order to obtain an income of such an entity as to cancel the risk he runs. In the second, a person uses his reputation and his expertise to give rise to a life project. Perhaps both could be fine, but the government seems to prefer the former, given the rules that facilitate them stock option; the hopes of success however, history teaches, are all on the latter. They ensure greater employment, long-term stability and, last but not least, the conservation of the territories that constitute our true competitive advantage. Science park AREA, one of our major centers of technological excellence, publishes a quarterly to illustrate the context in which its new businesses develop. The latest issue is dedicated to food and the "good science of eating": treatment of infections in kiwi plantations, new yeast strains to influence the organoleptic properties of bread, qualitative improvement of local specialties (warm cooked ham, Trieste brovada friulana), heart-saving foods, tests to verify lactose intolerances, new products extracted from olive leaves, the fight against contamination and food fraud, study of the pleasure of coffee, etc. etc. Nature non facit saltum.
***Riccardo VARALDO (September 9) and Guido REY (September 28) have recently spoken on FIRSTonline on HI-TECH START UPs
