Policy Assessment

Governments and public institutions must evaluate the effectiveness of public policies and assess their impact on social welfare in order to determine how to improve their interventions and identify in which areas these are most effective. This work requires:

• Selecting the most appropriate from amongst the existing evaluation methodologies or developing a new approach;
• Collecting all the data and the information necessary to perform the exercise, through existing sources or surveys;
• Performing the impact assessment and the cost-benefit analysis;
• Drawing up useful conclusions based on the strengths and weaknesses of the policy under examination;
• Suggesting ways to overcome these weaknesses.

We master empirical techniques and analytical tools necessary to assess with precision whether a specific policy is having its intended effect on the economy and to evaluate the size of this impact, to gauge its costs and benefits, and to determine how to improve it.

Relevant projects include: a project for the DG Economic and Financial Affairs of the European Commission aimed at developing an empirical methodology for the evaluation of the effectiveness of different competition policy regimes around the world in deterring anticompetitive behavior and fostering productivity. We have also designed a procedure for the ex-post review of merger control decisions to help the DG Competition of the European Commission to improve its enforcement policy and we have assessed the cost of erroneous antitrust decisions under Article 102 for the UK Office of Fair Trading.

See our publications and news on policy assessment.

If you need advice in the evaluation of any matter related to policy intervention, contact us.

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