Significance
Overall, this research topic is particularly interesting, because the academic literature examining the impact of start-up accelerators in general is relatively scant due to its contemporary nature. Within the existing literature on start-up accelerators, the majority only focus on measuring the impact of start-up accelerators in Western countries, which signals a lot of uncertainty as to how a start-up accelerator might fare in the Global South. In addition to this, there are many studies that attempt to identify what specific aspects of start-up accelerator programs result in higher likelihood of success for participants, but not many that study accelerators’ outward impact on regions and startup ecosystems. In this same vein, there is currently only one academic study from the University of Chile and a few private institutions that have attempted to study the positive impact of Start-Up Chile. However, many of these articles only measures its direct impact at the participant level, leaving many questions unanswered about its impact on the development of the Chilean start-up ecosysem. Moreover, Start-Up Chile's role as a government program also raises many questions about whether startup accelerators can be leveraged as an effective policy intervention for entrepreneurship, innovation and long-term economic growth. This gap led me to take a more macro-level approach and study the policy’s spill-over effects upon the greater Chilean start-up ecosystem. In an effort to address this gap, I hope to utilize my thesis to measure the regional impact of Start-Up Chile, and have this work serve as a case study for other developing economies exploring policy interventions to foment increased entrepreneurship and innovation within their own respective economies.
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