Damásio, Bruno Miguel PintoPinheiro, Flávio Luís PortasGomes, Gabriel Edwiges Silva Dos Santos2025-11-172025-11-03http://hdl.handle.net/10362/190874Dissertation presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Statistics and Information Management, specialization in Information Analysis and ManagementThis thesis investigates the causal impact of winning open auction public procurement contracts on the performance of Portuguese Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). While public procurement represents a powerful policy tool to support SMEs, rigorous empirical evidence on its effectiveness for SMEs, particularly concerning Portugal’s context, remains scarce. This study addresses this gap by employing Difference-in-Differences (DiD) estimators, primarily the method proposed by Callaway and Sant'Anna (2021), on a dataset combining firm-level financial records from ORBIS with comprehensive public contract data from Portal BASE for the period 2013-2022. Our primary analysis suggests that winning a public contract results in a significant and robust increase in firm profitability. On average, winning firms experienced substantial increases in both Return on Assets (ROA) and Operating Profit (EBIT). However, we find no corresponding increase in firm growth, as measured by either employment or asset growth. The analysis of treatment effect heterogeneity reveals that the profitability gains are primarily driven by medium-sized and younger firms, as well as those with a history of repeated contract awards. These findings, robust across multiple DiD estimators, suggest that while public procurement can enhance SME profitability, its benefits are not uniform and may depend on a firm's pre-existing capabilities, age, and industry context, highlighting the need for more targeted policy measures that go beyond simply increasing SME access to public contracts.engPublic ProcurementSME PerformanceDifference-in-Differences (DiD)Policy EvaluationEvent StudySDG 8 - Decent work and economic growthSDG 9 - Industry, innovation and infrastructuremaster thesis204070619