IA tools applied to impact assessment of EU policies in agriculture and environment

Abstract

Demand for impact assessment (IA) tools by public administrations has increased significantly in the last decades, when the European Union has also increased its efforts to measure the impact of its agricultural and environmental policies. Different IA tools have been applied to assess EU policies in agriculture and environment, like the Common Agricultural Policy reform, decoupling, the Water Framework Directive, agri-environmental schemes, the Nitrates Directive, etc. This paper considers impact assessment tools that are commonly used in Europe and the rest of the world for carrying out assessments initiated by policymakers. The aim of the paper is to provide a review of the IA tools applied for the assessment of the EU policies in agriculture and environment, to analyse them and to classify them by different criteria according to the policy that they have been applied to and by the impacts that they have been measured. This paper reviews 116 published studies for impact assessment carried out in European countries.