Reviewing Counterfactual Analyses to Assess Impacts of EU Rural Development Programmes: What Lessons Can Be Learned from the 2007–2013 Ex-Post Evaluations?

Counterfactual analysis has been recommended as a means of assessing the impacts of European Rural Development Programmes (RDP) over recent years, although its application has been scarce to date. This paper examines the use of counterfactual analysis to assess socioeconomic impacts in a set of 2007⁻2013 ex-post evaluations. The analysis undertaken shows that a wide variety of counterfactual approaches have been applied, although certain barriers still remain to address the estimation of RDP impacts following the EU evaluation standards. Furthermore, we noted that impacts provided by individual RDP evaluations may hardly be aggregated, making it difficult to draw clear conclusions about the effectiveness of rural development policy at the EU level