Retaining winners: Can policy boost high-growth entrepreneurship?

We analysed the growth impact delivered by a high-growth entrepreneurship policy initiative over a six-year period. Using an eight-year panel that started two years before the initiative was launched and propensity score matching to control selection bias, we found that the initiative had more than doubled the growth rates of treated firms. The initiative had delivered a strong impact also on value-for-money basis. In addition to producing the first robust evidence on the growth impact delivered by a high-growth entrepreneurship initiative, we contribute to public sponsorship theory with the notion of capacity-boosting activities to complement previously discussed buffering and bridging activities. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.