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The Role of Financial Instruments in PPP Blended Projects journal article

Gianni Carbonaro, Gelsomina Catalano, Laura Delponte, Silvia Vignetti

European Structural and Investment Funds Journal, Volume 6 (2018), Issue 2, Page 111 - 121

In recent years, a number of studies have emphasised the potentially beneficial role of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) in the implementation of various aspects of the EU policy agenda, including the Cohesion Policy objectives pursued through the ESI Funds. However, there are also critical views about the benefit of using PPPs in delivering public policies. While not discussing the general advantages of PPPs, this paper argues that the main challenge of combining Cohesion Policy and the PPP approach lies in the need to organise the interface between two complex processes, which are usually planned and implemented independently. Combining them in effective ways poses additional complications related to coordinating the timing of operations and aligning the incentives determining the behaviour of various stakeholders. As a result, “blended” operations - combining the PPP approach with ESI funds - have been relatively rare thus far. The use of ESI Funds to establish Financial Instruments (FIs) is likely to provide a further incentive for adopting a PPP approach, particularly in the context of small and medium-sized investment projects. This is because FIs reduce some of the coordination and implementation problems that arise when the ESI resources are combined with a PPP. Although the available evidence is scant and fragmented, this paper tries to cast some light and to provide examples on how FIs can be used to facilitate the closure of PPP projects within the context of the ESI Funds.


How to Design Effective Strategies to Support SMEs Innovation and Growth During the Economic Crisis journal article

Lessons from Ex-post Evaluation of 2007-2013 ERDF Programmes

Massimo Florio, Elena Vallino, Silvia Vignetti

European Structural and Investment Funds Journal, Volume 5 (2017), Issue 2, Page 99 - 110

This paper presents and discusses some of the results of the ex-post evaluation of the contribution of the European Regional Development Fund 2007-2013 programmes to SMEs growth and innovation. Implemented during a harsh economic crisis, the ERDF provided € 47.5 billion of SMEs support, representing 16 % of the total ERDF allocation during the 2007-2013 period. Programme strategies aimed more to cope with the contingent economic pressures and fall in employment levels than to address long-term objectives addressing structural barriers affecting target SMEs. The majority of policy instruments which were conceived, or further adjusted during the reprogramming phase, for generic SMEs support generated a diffuse stabilizing and anticyclical mechanism. Findings however show that the most effective strategies were represented by those more ambitious instruments that had a well specified logic intervention, focused objectives and selective targeting strategies.

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