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Current Knowledge Gaps and Research Methodology Problems in Impact Evaluation of Structural and Cohesion Funds Across the European Union

Current Knowledge Gaps and Research Methodology Problems in Impact Evaluation of Structural and Cohesion Funds Across the European Union

Authors

Pages

49-61

Abstract

The impact assessment of public policies of all levels in general and community funding in particular is a relatively new sector involving both theoreticians in economics, econometrics, statistics, finance, mathematics, socio-human sciences, political sciences, geography, etc., as well as practitioners from public or private institutions. In this article the author tried to determine what knowledge gaps and research methodology problems exist in the field of impact evaluation of Structural and Cohesion funds, as it was demonstrated that community investments do not necessarily generate visible benefits at local level. Certainly, there is plausible research in the field of such community financing, since from the pre-accession to the post-accession programming periods, in the vast majority of EU Member States, it was reiterated that the impact of these funds on the national economies was not conceptualized. This was mostly due to the fact that the effects on the potential beneficiaries were not identified in real terms, in both macroeconomic and microeconomic perspectives.