Evaluating the impact of European Union cohesion policy in less-developed countries and regions

The expansion of Structural Funds since the late 1980s presented European Commission and domestic policy-makers with design and impact evaluation challenges. Such policies moved beyond demand-side stimulation, and were aimed at the promotion of real convergence, mainly through productivity-enhancing, supply-side mechanisms. Research suggests that the 'macro-models' are potentially capable of extracting the pure Structural Funds policy impacts from the background of all the other domestic and external shocks that affect the economy at the same time. However, such results only provide imprecise, ballpark impact estimates, and the challenge remains of reconciling bottom-up microanalysis with top-down macroanalysis.