Effects of Regional Development Programmes

Abstract

Almost three decades ago, a paradigm change in funding policies for rural regions took effect in Europe and Germany involving a move towards cooperative, actor-oriented regional development. Although meanwhile a large number of elaborated evaluations of different types on the effects of programmes for regional development was provided in particular, the results of impact evaluations do not allow distinct conclusions if the programmes have the intended impacts on the economic and demographic development of the German regions. Presented here is the first impact evaluation for Germany – if not for Europe – comprising projects and competitions from various policy fields of regional development, covering 27 programmes in five policy fields in the period from 1991 to 2016. Although the number of programmes and not the amount of funding gional development policies in a multi-level political system has emerged. Measures to develop business-support infrastructures and trade investments, e.g. ERDF (European Regional Development Fund), are completed by increasing supportive instruments like regional cooperation, networking and management structures. However, the funding is remote from classic development programmes. The basic theoretical framework behind this paradigm shift is provided by the concepts of “relational economic geography” (Bathelt, Glückler 2002), which focuses more on the institutional context of a space and interactions between actors than classical regional-economic approaches. The theoretical stringency of these concepts and their empirical underpinnings are, however, the subject of dispute within economic geography (Schätzl 2003: 243). The effectiveness of these was analysed, the results serve to strengthen doubts about the effectiveness of the regional development programmes. In any case, a simple accumulation of a large number of funded regional development activities does not have measurable effects on the demographic and economic evolution of the regions.