This course attempts to form students in the use of methods to evaluate socio-economic programs and policies It is particularly interesting to have at least a partial view of the available methods and to study some cases of particular interest in the context of the European Union. In our opinion, it is also useful in a Master, as the European Union one, to do so in a very applied and multidisciplinary way. The main objective of the course is to provide the students some useful tools, which allow them to be able to evaluate the impact of policies and programs implemented in the European Union.

In any typical context in the public or private sectors is now common to take informed decisions based on evaluations. This course attempts to present the basic methodology to do impact evaluation of programs or policies. Impact evaluation should involve the definition of an outcome, the description of the objectives of the program or policy and the application of a method to extract causal effects of the program or policy on the outcome. This way of doing is the base to inform decisions for impact evaluation of socio-economic programs or policies.

The course provide the student with the basics for doing impact evaluation of socio-economic programs. The cases pay particular attention to the evaluation of programs and policies taken at the core of the European institutions.