This book examines the long-term achievements of Cohesion policy from 1989 to 2012 and draws out the main policy implications. Originally undertaken for the European Commission by the authors, this major longitudinal study adopts an innovative approach to assessing the effectiveness and achievements of this policy, building on case studies of 15 regions from different parts of Europe. The rationale for the book is to present the findings of the research in a concise and digestible manner that will be of value to policy-makers across the EU and to academics interested in the past effectiveness and future direction of the policy.The research brings out messages for the conduct of Cohesion policy in the current programme period, covering 2014-2020. It also has implications for the debates, already launched, on how Cohesion policy might evolve after 2020."
This book examines the long-term achievements of Cohesion policy from 1989 to 2012 and draws out the main policy implications. Originally undertaken for the European Commission by the authors, this major longitudinal study adopts an innovative approach to assessing the effectiveness and achievements of this policy, building on case studies of 15 regions from different parts of Europe. The rationale for the book is to present the findings of the research in a concise and digestible manner that will be of value to policy-makers across the EU and to academics interested in the past effectiveness and future direction of the policy.The research brings out messages for the conduct of Cohesion policy in the current programme period, covering 2014-2020. It also has implications for the debates, already launched, on how Cohesion policy might evolve after 2020."
EU Cohesion Policy in Practice: What Does it Achieve?
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Overview
This book examines the long-term achievements of Cohesion policy from 1989 to 2012 and draws out the main policy implications. Originally undertaken for the European Commission by the authors, this major longitudinal study adopts an innovative approach to assessing the effectiveness and achievements of this policy, building on case studies of 15 regions from different parts of Europe. The rationale for the book is to present the findings of the research in a concise and digestible manner that will be of value to policy-makers across the EU and to academics interested in the past effectiveness and future direction of the policy.The research brings out messages for the conduct of Cohesion policy in the current programme period, covering 2014-2020. It also has implications for the debates, already launched, on how Cohesion policy might evolve after 2020."
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781783487233 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. |
| Publication date: | 07/20/2016 |
| Series: | Rowman & Littlefield International - Policy Impacts |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 160 |
| File size: | 3 MB |
About the Author
Iain Begg is a Professorial Research Fellow at the European Institute, London School of Economics and Political Science.
David Charles is Professor of Innovation and Strategic Management at the Lincoln Business School, University of Lincoln.
Laura Polverari is Senior Research Fellow in the European Policies Research Centre, University of Strathclyde
Read an Excerpt
EU Cohesion Policy in Practice
What Does It Achieve?
By John Bachtler, Iain Begg, David Charles, Laura Polverari
Rowman & Littlefield International, Ltd.
Copyright © 2016 John Bachtler, Iain Begg, David Charles and Laura PolverariAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-78348-723-3
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
Understanding the Effectiveness of EU Cohesion Policy
As one of the two most prominent components of public expenditure from the EU budget (along with support for agriculture), the performance of EU Cohesion policy has been at the heart of debates on the effectiveness of EU spending for almost two decades (Mendez et al. 2011; Begg et al. 2014; Polverari and Bachtler 2014). In the late 1990s, one of the two core structural policy goals of the Agenda 2000 reform package was to "improve the effectiveness of the structural policy instruments so that economic and social cohesion can be achieved" (European Commission 1997). The impact and added value of the Structural Funds were also central themes of the negotiations on Cohesion policy reform in the 2004–2005 period (Bachtler et al. 2013) at a time when the contribution of cohesion spending to EU growth was seen as mixed at best (Sapir 2003; Bachtler and Gorzelak 2007). Most recently, the need to improve the performance and results of Structural and Investment Funds were important motivations for the reforms introduced in 2013 (Berkowitz 2015; Bachtler and Mendez 2016). And, looking forward to the post-2020 period, the issue of effectiveness has already been highlighted by EU Commissioner for Regional and Urban Policy Corina Cretu, focusing specifically on the lack of convergence of many lagging regions despite (in the case of southern Europe) decades of EU and national support (Cretu 2015).
The continuing debate on the effectiveness of the policy is not due to a lack of research. Since the major reform of the Structural Funds in 1988, there has been considerable academic inquiry and extensive evaluation on the performance of Cohesion policy, more so than in any other area of EU expenditure (Polverari and Bachtler 2014). Yet one of the curious features of the policy is that there is surprisingly little consensus on how well it works, how effective it has been in reducing regional disparities and improving the performance of supported regional economies, and how useful it has been in fulfilling the goals set for it. Academic research and evaluation studies have reached widely differing conclusions on the results of interventions through Structural and Cohesion Funds.
There are many plausible explanations for this apparent paradox. A first is that the policy has had multiple goals that have, moreover, evolved substantially over time, making it hard to arrive at a simple assessment of cause and effect. In each programme period since 1989, the design of programmes has been subject to different strategic objectives at EU level and (in some cases) changing regional eligibility status, as well as different national or regional government priorities on the use of EU funding.
Second, Cohesion policy is only one among many influences on the transformations affecting regional economies, and many of the other influences will be more telling, especially where the scale of funding accruing to the region is moderate. This means that isolating the specific contribution of Cohesion policy, while theoretically possible using appropriate statistical techniques, is subject to pronounced uncertainty.
Third, regional transformation is a long-run process in which different determinants have to come together optimally to create cumulative effects that only happen after lengthy, and uncertain, lags. Minimum thresholds — for example, for connectivity or quality of basic services — may need to be attained before a favourable outcome becomes plausible. The quality of government and specifically the administrative capacity in managing authorities, implementing bodies and beneficiaries will also influence the effectiveness of resource allocation and project delivery.
Lastly, there have been formidable obstacles to evaluation. Until recently, there were no reliable comparable data on how Cohesion policy funds were spent under different programmes. Data for programme outcomes have often been unreliable or absent, and it has been difficult to establish relationships between EU spending and regional indicators for income, employment or other measures of economic development.
Against this background, the aim of this book is to investigate the main achievements of Cohesion policy programmes and projects, and their effectiveness and utility, over the long term from 1989 to 2012. It is the first study to examine the longitudinal performance of the funds for the entire period in which they have been available since the 1988 landmark reform, and to assess performance across regions from different EU countries. Focusing on the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and Cohesion Fund (CF), the study addressed three main questions:
• To what extent did the programmes address regional needs and problems over time?
• To what extent did the achievements of the ERDF and CF meet regional objectives in each programme period and across the entire period from 1989 to 2012?
• What are the main lessons learnt on the effectiveness and utility of ERDF interventions?
In analysing what the funds have achieved, the study looks at three dimensions of performance: the outcomes recorded by the programmes; whether these outcomes met the objectives set for them; and whether the outcomes succeeded in meeting the needs of the regions where the funding was spent.
The book is based on a research study, funded by the European Commission, which examined the achievements of all national and regional programmes co-financed by the ERDF and, where applicable, the Cohesion Fund in fifteen selected regions of the EU15 over the period from 1989 to 2012 (Bachtler et al. 2013) It therefore covered most of four separate programme periods — 1989–1993, 1994–1999, 2000–2006 and 2007–2013.
Over these periods, regions were classified in various terms by the Commission depending on their level of development and hence need for funding. In the main, for the first three periods, regions were primarily classified as either Objective 1 regions with a GDP per capita of below 75 percent of the EU average, or Objective 2, which were above 75 percent of GDP but still experiencing development challenges such as high unemployment in old-industrial or rural regions. In the 2007–2013 period, a different classification was used of Convergence regions for the poorest (formerly Objective 1 regions) and Regional Competitiveness and Employment (RCE) for all other regions including those not formerly supported by the Structural Funds. In 2014–2020 yet another classification has been introduced: Less-Developed Regions, Transition Regions and More-Developed Regions.
Corresponding to this classification, the fifteen case studies were selected to cover three types of regions in ten countries (see table 1.1):
• Less-developed regions: regions eligible for Objective 1/Convergence support from 1989–1993 to 2012 (six regions);
• Transitional regions: regions eligible for Objective 1 or 6 at one time, but which subsequently were given Phasing-In/Out or Regional Competitiveness and Employment status (six regions); and
• More-developed regions: regions partially or wholly eligible for Objective 2/RCE status from 1989–1993 to 2012 (three regions).
The selection of regions was also influenced by three further criteria:
• scale of Cohesion policy support — regions with large programmes in a national context (based on regional EU funding as a proportion of member state allocations) with a bias towards member states that have been the largest recipients of EU funding;
• geographical distribution — a 'balanced' representation of member states, as well as of different institutional contexts, in terms of domestic government arrangements, resource allocation systems and the role of domestic regional policies; and
• stability — in terms of regional administrative boundaries and (preferably) minimal changes in terms of institutional structures and management arrangements.
The geographical location of the fifteen regions is shown in figure 1.1. Collectively, these regions accounted for estimated EU spending of &8364;146 billion over the period (see chapter 5).
The research in each region was undertaken according to a common, structured methodology involving five main elements. The study began with a context analysis of the initial regional development problems and needs at the outset of the period, the development paths in terms of regional GDP and unemployment, and the evolution of development needs over time.
Second, the research involved an analysis of the evolution of strategies and expenditure under each of the EU-funded programmes implemented in each region in each programme period. This included an assessment of the explicit strategies (as stated in programme documents) and implicit strategies (the rationale for spending decisions in reality), their relevance and synergies with domestic programmes. In the absence of published data on EU spending by programme (especially for the early programme periods) a unique database of expenditure was constructed.
Third, an analysis of reported and actual achievements was undertaken, comparing the indicators contained in programme reports with figures reported in other sources and taking account of the reliability of monitoring data. Fourth, the study involved an assessment of achievements against objectives and needs — the degree to which programme achievements met the objectives set at the start of a programme period (at programme and measure levels), and the extent to which the achievements met the needs of the regions according to various indicators. Lastly the research explored the complementarities and synergies of the funding, specifically the degree to which there was coherence across different EU interventions and with domestic (national/regional) policy priorities.
A central thread of the analysis was the use of 'thematic axes' (or themes) as a framework for understanding the programmes and their achievements. These were: innovation; enterprise; structural adjustment; infrastructure; environment; labour market; social cohesion and territorial cohesion. The themes were used for collating expenditure data and analysing outcomes.
The research involved secondary source research, covering a wide range of programme documentation (regional development plans, community strategic frameworks, single programming documents, operational programmes, annual implementation reports, programme final reports), monitoring data, ex ante, interim, ex post and thematic evaluation studies, national reports and academic research. In addition, a total of 543 interviews were undertaken across the fifteen regions with a wide range of respondents — government officials at national and regional levels responsible for regional development policy, programme-level strategy development and programming, and programme implementation, as well as external evaluators and academic researchers. These interviews were complemented by consultative workshops on the initial findings, bringing together a representative range of bodies and individuals. A large-scale online survey of organisations involved in programme or project implementation was also conducted in each region.
This volume presents a concise, policy-orientated discussion of the findings and their implications for the future of Cohesion policy, drawing extensively on a synthesis report prepared for DG Regio and also available via its website at the same link as the case studies. For the most part, it does not seek to aggregate data or information on the results of programmes across periods or countries. The range of different sources used to reconstruct the evolution of programmes from 1989 to 2012, and in some instances (especially for earlier programmes) the questionable accuracy of some of the data, made this impossible. Instead, the book seeks to tell a story of how the resources invested through Cohesion policy were used, what they achieved in the different regions and the implications for research and policy practice.
The book is structured as follows. Following this introduction, chapters 2 and 3 discuss the theoretical and empirical approaches to the evaluation of Cohesion policy, and the innovative application of theory-based evaluation methods for this study. Chapter 4 reviews the evolution of the regional problem in the fifteen case-study regions, and the responses to those development problems through EU programme strategies are examined in chapter 5. In keeping with the theory-based approach to evaluation adopted, chapter 5 pays particular attention to the implicit strategies that often lay behind the declared objectives and the resource allocation choices made. Chapter 6 addresses the effectiveness of Cohesion policy interventions, that is, the degree to which stated objectives and targets were met, followed in chapter 7 by a discussion of the utility of achievements, that is, the degree to which policy results contributed to address the regions' needs. Chapter 8 reflects on the implications that the study has for the design and implementation of Cohesion policies and programmes. The book concludes with reflections on the lessons for the future of Cohesion policy after 2020.
CHAPTER 2The Evaluation of EU Cohesion Policy
EVALUATING STRUCTURAL AND COHESION FUNDS
Academic research and evaluation studies have reached widely differing conclusions on the results of interventions through Structural and Cohesion Funds. There are severe methodological problems associated with defining what would have happened in the absence of the policy — the counterfactual. For many of the regions that have been long-term recipients of funding from what are now known as the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF), the money they receive has become a core component of their public investment strategies, and it is not easy to define where they would otherwise be.
The academic and policy literature concerned with the evaluation of Cohesion policy is both very broad and very diverse. Studies come in many forms (academic papers, commissioned reports, consultancy projects, official evaluations, etc.) and employ many and diverse methodological approaches, reflecting the fact that there is no 'optimal' evaluation approach and that, rather, each method has its own strengths and weaknesses. Three specific distinctions help in understanding the various approaches: the time of the evaluation; the scale or level at which the policy is being evaluated and the role of theory in the evaluation strategies.
A first distinction is between ex ante and ex post analyses. The former are often macroeconomic models of various kinds, of which the best known in the Cohesion policy context are HERMIN (Bradley et al. 2007; Bradley and Untiedt 2009) and QUEST (in t'Veld 2007; Varga and in t'Veld 2010). These seek to calibrate regional performance after shifting some policy parameters and evaluate the results against comparisons with outcomes in the absence of policy shifts — and depending on the model and time period, finding impacts on GDP of up to 6 percent. Other ex ante evaluations are rather linked more directly to qualitative research within the tradition of theory-based evaluation (TBE) and evidence-based policy (EBP). In this tradition, the policy intentions are analysed ex ante and juxtaposed against the policy means and instruments, taking into account the 'treated' context (e.g., the socio-economic, institutional, political, etc., environment of a recipient region or a beneficiary sector). The fit between these is then evaluated against past and parallel experiences, where outcomes have been evaluated as positive and where the impact of contextual factors (enabling or hindering these positive outcomes) has been successfully identified.
Ex post analyses and evaluations have perhaps a broader range. They include macro-econometric studies examining the performance of target/'treated' groups (e.g., regions) controlling for a series of characteristics that are believed (usually, from theory) to affect the outcomes under study. A very common approach to evaluation (Davies 2014), these studies encompass research finding that Cohesion policy funding has had a positive and statistically significant effect on convergence (e.g., Becker et al. 2010; Mohl and Hagen 2010; Dall'erba 2005; Cappelen et al. 2003; Midelfart-Knarvik and Overman 2002), to those finding small or no effects (Hagen and Mohl 2008; Rodriguez-Pose and Fratesi 2004; Boldrin and Canova 2001). Ex post evaluations also include micro-econometric studies that often place more emphasis on identification issues and try to evaluate a 'treatment' against an empirically plausible 'counterfactual' (Bondonio and Martini 2012; Criscuolo et al. 2012; Hart and Bonner 2011; Trzcinski 2011), again finding different effects on indicators such as employment, innovation on productivity.
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Excerpted from EU Cohesion Policy in Practice by John Bachtler, Iain Begg, David Charles, Laura Polverari. Copyright © 2016 John Bachtler, Iain Begg, David Charles and Laura Polverari. Excerpted by permission of Rowman & Littlefield International, Ltd..
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