NEW BOOK! "EU Cohesion Policy in Practice: What Does it Achieve?" By John Bachtler, Iain Begg, David Charles and Laura Polverari. Rowman and Littlefield 2016 (Forthcoming: May)

EU Cohesion policy, along with support for agriculture and rural development, is one of the main items of EU spending. Perhaps surprisingly, however, past attempts to assess the effectiveness of the EU Cohesion policy have proved to be highly ambivalent. The book summarises the findings and brings out the main policy implications from a major, longitudinal study of EU Cohesion policy from 1989 to 2012. Originally undertaken for the European Commission by the authors, the evaluation adopted an innovative approach to assessing the effectiveness and achievements of this policy, building on case studies of fifteen regions from different parts of Europe. Importantly, the research provides policy lessons for the 2014-20 period and post-2020 EU Cohesion policy. Currently in print, the book is available for pre-order via Amazon and the publisher's website.