The paper presents a critical discussion of ex-post impact evaluation of policies that affect regional economic development, with a particular emphasis on drawing useful implications for policy making. In particular, it discusses the importance of setting clear and measurable objectives in designing policies and the need for equally clear policy levers; it highlights the main advantages of “counterfactual” evaluation; it analyses the methodological specificities of the evaluation of programmes that have a regional or urban dimension; and it provides a survey of some of the most relevant examples in the empirical economics literature.

The ultimate goal is to “bridge” the perceived distance between policy discussions on the one side, and academic debates on the other. Some specific recommendations conclude the report.