Governance and the implementation of the EU Cohesion Policy

Viviana Celli, Riccardo Crescenzi, Guido de Blasio and Mara Giua

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: This paper explores the role of governance in policy implementation, using the European Union (EU) Cohesion Policy as a case study. Leveraging a quasi-natural experiment in Italy, where certain projects were shifted from EU to national management, we evaluate the impact of governance structures on financial execution. Using a non-parametric generalization of the difference-in-differences estimator, we find that otherwise identical projects achieve better financial execution under EU governance. Projects reassigned to national management experience a significant slowdown in financial execution within ten months, with delays reaching nearly 20% after 24 months. These delays are particularly pronounced when projects are managed at the sub-national level rather than by the national government. Our findings contribute to the broader policy debate on the effectiveness of multi-level governance structures in public investment programs.

Keywords: institutional quality; European Union; place-based policies; regional transfers; governance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C21 H54 O40 R11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 14 pages
Date: 2025-02-24
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:127393

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