Evaluating the effectiveness of policies to support knowledge-based companies in Iran: an Ex-post Evaluation Based on Objective Data

The policy cycle is not complete without policy evaluation. It has been more than eight years since the implementation of “knowledge-based companies supporting law”, and it is time to evaluate the outcomes and achievements of these policies. Due to the lack of clear indicators for this evaluation, this study tries to develop a set of related indicators by studying the theoretical foundations, experiences of other countries and holding some expert panels. Then, after collecting and preparing data, some of the most important indicators were calculated and the effectiveness of the programs was evaluated. In other words, this study is an ex-post effectiveness assessment based on the collection and analysis of objective data from sources such as corporate tax returns, knowledge-based companies database, evaluation reports of agents of the Vice-Presidency for Science and Technology and the Real Estate Registration Organization of Iran database; So has avoided subjective judgments. Most of the data used in this paper were related to the years 1393 to 1396. The indicators have been calculated in different ways for consecutive years as much as possible to provide more comparability. The results show that policy tools to facilitate customs affairs have the most effect, and tools aimed at human resources and establishing accounting procedures have the least effect. It is difficult to monitor the effect of tax policies on increasing R&D activities, but they had a significant effect on reducing corporate costs compared to other tax exemptions.