Evaluating the impact of public policies on regional welfare

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Abstract
Haveman R. H. (1976) Evaluating the impact of public policies on regional welfare, Reg. Studies 10, 449–463. A persistent regional planning issue—the evaluation of public policies when both national economic efficiency and regional equity are objectives—is addressed in this paper. After defining ‘regional development’ both in concept and for applied work, the wide range of policy measures available to affect regional welfare is identified. If increasing the welfare of specific regions is a social objective, policy evaluation in a benefit-cost context requires both an explicit set of regional weights and estimates of the impact of the policy on both the regions of concern and all other regions. The requirements of such an ideal regional impact analysis are presented and compared with the approach employed in a number of existing analyses of regional impact. Several recommendations are offered to close the gap between existing policy evaluations when regional development objectives are specified and the ideal form of such analyses.

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