The Effective Use of National Recovery and Resilience Plan Funding: A Methodological Approach for the Optimal Assessment of the Initiative Costs

Abstract

With reference to the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), the financial budget provided for a specific project constitutes a fundamental constraint to be taken into account in the selection phase of the initiatives to be carried out. In the present research, a methodological approach based on an optimization algorithm that allows one to minimize the differential between the assessed costs and the budget provided for the project, has been defined. The methodology is organized in three phases and, by borrowing the logic of the Operational Research, aims to minimize the gap between the costs assessed by the expert technician and the final costs, in order to fit the preliminary set budget. In this sense, the developed tool constitutes an effective support for Public Administrations and private investors for choosing the investments to be implemented, in order to identify the best initiatives in which to allocate the public funding, by preventing needless waste of limited financial resources that could be invested in alternative interventions, and to generate further benefits for the communities.

An innovative methodology for the assessment of the social discount rate: an application to the European states for ensuring the goals of equitable growth

“…In order to appropriately manage and use the available NRRP and public financial resources, the implementation of evaluation methodological approaches plays a central role to support the public administrations choices processes for the definition of the projects most consistent with the plan goals (Tajani et al, 2022;Hwang, 2016;Priemus et al, 2008). In general terms, by adopting a long-term time horizon, the CBA is an analytical tool used to estimate the advantages or disadvantages generated by an investment, evaluating its costs and benefits as a measure of the impact on social well-being (Tajani et al, 2018;Morano et al, 2020;Mishan and Quah, 2020).…”