Enhancing objectivity and decision relevance: a better framework for evaluating EU cohesion policies
分析了欧盟凝聚政策评估体系的不足，如目标函数模糊、成员国评估文化差异、反事实方法使用有限等，并提出改进建议以提升评估的可信度和影响力。
By international standards, the European Union’s Cohesion Policy (CP) evaluation system is well developed and institutionalised. This paper analyses the remaining shortcomings and proposes recommendations for further refinement. A broad CP objective function emerges as a key challenge. Evaluation culture is not equally developed in all member states, and evaluation markets suffer from a lack of international competition. There is still limited use of counterfactual methods which have become standard in the academic literature on the effectiveness of CP, and there may be tensions between policy learning and demonstrating accountability. The paper proposes innovations to make CP evaluations more credible and impactful.