The effect of science and technology parks on tenant firms: a literature review

Abstract

Science and technology parks (STPs) are non-spontaneous agglomerations aimed at encouraging the formation and growth of on-site technology and knowledge-based frms. STPs have difused worldwide, attracting signifcant, and often public, investment. However, there are contrasting evidence and insights on the efectiveness of these local development, technology and innovation policy tools. This paper provides a comprehensive and systematic review of the STP literature (221 papers, 1987–2021), focusing especially on quantitative papers aimed at assessing the park efect on tenant’s performance. We perform an in-depth quantitative analyses, which allows us to go beyond the inconclusiveness reported in previous review papers, showing that the likelihood of fnding positive STP efects increases considerably with sample size. We discuss the limitations of this literature and ofer some suggestions for future research.