Net impact of Interreg: causal inference, counterfactuals and their applicability to Interreg

As part of the ESPON transnational outreach efforts, ESPON has been working together with the Austrian Institute for Regional Studies ÖIR on the assessment of counterfactual methods against their applicability in Interreg. The results have been published as a transnational brief aimed at Interreg programming authorities, outlining popular causal inference methods typically applied in policy impact assessment. The paper offers conclusions about their applicability in Interreg, taking into account basic statistical assumptions. 

The transnational brief explains the most frequently applied statistical methods in policy impact assessment: difference in differences (DiD), propensity score matching (PSM) and regression discontinuity design (RDD), among others.

The paper introduces a number of valuable observations already documented by the European Commission, the Interreg CENTRAL EUROPE programme, and INTERACT that gave rise to the empirical model.

Documents

Net impact of INTERREG.pdf

  • Acrobat Document | 876KB