The effectiveness of rural development policies in Puglia: some reflections on measure 121 - Axes I

This work represents an early attempt to build a framework to analyze how the Rural Development Plan decided by the Region of Puglia for the period 2007-2013 has actually affected the regional agriculture. More specifically, by referring to a specific measure of the rural development program (Measure 121 of Axes I), our aim is to verify whether the investment activity implemented under the measure in question has actually generated some positive results and the EU budget devoted to rural development is well spent. Although some more work needs to be done to build a database useful for our analysis purpose, in this work we develop some early considerations on the part of data received by the Puglia Region Authority and highlight what is required for the completion of a useful dataset. In addition, we take the advantage of this preliminary work to promote a comparative approach to investigate the issue here proposed.