Macro Impact Evaluation of National Development Plans: Ireland and Estonia

The EU Structural Fund programmes, when they are in their design phase, are usually referred to as National Development Plans (or NDPs). However, when the NDPs have been approved by the European Commission, and are being implemented, they are usually referred to as Community Support Frameworks (or CSFs), and we will use the term CSF in this paper. First we describe how macroeconomic model-based techniques were developed in the late 1980s to carry out systematic ex-ante impact evaluations of the Irish CSF 1989-93 (Bradley, Fitz Gerald and Kearney, 1992; Bradley, et al, 1993 and 1995). This involved adapting the HERMIN model framework (described in Chapter 8) to take account of the restructuring effects of the EU programmes, and how the role of the Structural Funds can be separated from other external and domestic influences.

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