Evaluating the impact of Enterprise Ireland assistance: methodological considerations when estimating deadweight and displacement

Abstract

This paper examines an approach to estimating the net additionality of financial assistance to indigenously-owned firms in Ireland for the period 2000 to 2002. Using a sample of Enterprise Ireland assisted-firms an innovative self-assessment case study methodology was adopted in order to test the ways in which estimates of partial deadweight can be derived. The results show that the net additionality of Enterprise Ireland assistance can be estimated as around 50 per cent for this sample of case studies which represent a pool of clients which accounted for just-over two-thirds of the financial assistance provided by Enterprise Ireland in the period of the study.