The purpose of the paper is to analyse some results of cost-benefit analysis in a sample of ISPA (Structural Instrument for pre-accession countries) projects. The focus is particularly on the variability of financial and economic rates of return and how to integrate this information in the EU co-financing mechanism. We investigate, through the analysis of variance of co-financing rate, to which extent variability of rates is due to structural characteristics (sectors, countries) or to the existence of a residual variance due both to specificity of the project and discretional element of the appraisal method, which may constitute an information noise. We find that the variance of co-financing rate across countries is poorly explained by different composition of sectors of investment. This suggests the need to reinforce a more consistent approach to evaluation and co-financing. We suggest some possible solutions. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The present study aims at offering empirical evidence to improve existing knowledge and theory building on research infrastructure evaluation. Through an inductive case study research strategy, an innovative cost-benefit analysis framework has been used to assess the impact of an applied research infrastructure. The case study is the National Hadrontherapy Centre for Cancer Treatment (CNAO) located in Pavia (Italy). CNAO is an applied research facility specialised in hadrontherapy, an advanced oncological treatment showing clinical advantages as compared to traditional radiotherapy, at the same time being more expensive as it exploits non-commercial accelerators technology and sophisticated control and dose delivery systems. The analysis shows that with a fairly high probability the Centre provides a positive net contribution to society's welfare. Source of benefits are mainly health treatments to patients, for whom gains in terms of longer or better lives are guaranteed as compared to a counterfactual situation where they are treated with conventional therapies or they have no alternatives. Such benefits are the direct consequences of the application to end users of the knowledge developed in the Centre with research activities and are quantified and assessed on the basis of conventional Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) approaches for health benefits. Additional benefits generated by the Centre are typical of research infrastructures in different scientific domains and refer to technological spillovers (namely creation of spin-offs, technological transfer to companies in the supply chain and to other similar facilities), knowledge creation (production of scientific outputs), human capital formation (training of doctoral students, technicians and professionals in the field of hadrontherapy) and cultural outreach (students, researchers and wider public visiting the facilities). Evidences show that the adopted CBA framework is a promising avenue as compared to existing alternative methodologies informing decision-making. Further research is however needed to fine tune the methodology, in particular for what concerns technological spillovers and knowledge creation benefits.
We consider results of cost-benefit analysis (CBA) in a large sample of ISPA (Structural Instrument for Pre-Accession countries) projects co-financed by the European Union to support investment in transport and environment. The research focus is on the empirical analysis of the variability of financial and economic rates of return and how to integrate this information in the EU co-financing mechanism. We investigate to what extent the variability of expected returns and of EU co-financing rates is due to structural project characteristics (sectors, countries) or to other unexplained factors, including errors in the appraisal. We find that while the absolute level of grants is related to sectors, the EU co-financing rate depends on countries. There is no justification in economic analysis of such a country bias, because the variability of economic rate of returns is unrelated either to sector or country factors. These findings points to the need of a more consistent approach to evaluation and EU co-financing of infrastructure supported by the EU funds. We suggest possible improvements, based on the idea to offer an incentive to projects with high-expected economic␣rates of return relative to a benchmark and showing ex-post the realism of the initial analysis. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2005cost-benefit analysis, EU Structural Funds, infrastructure, project evaluation, D61, H43, R58,
This paper draws and expands from a recent ex-post evaluation carried out for the European Commission aimed at assessing the long term effects produced by a sample of ten major infrastructures in the Transport and Environment sectors and interpreting the key determinants of the observed performance. This evaluation study offered a unique opportunity to draw conclusions on the value of performing ex-post evaluations and to test an innovative evaluation design combining cost-benefit analysis (CBA) with qualitative assessment and adopting a long-run perspective (30 years), which extends into both the past and the future, and requires a mix of retrospective and prospective analysis. This paper presents the potential of ex-post CBA to assess long term impacts of major infrastructure projects and discusses some methodological and institutional implications related to its use1.
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