Evaluation of Public Programs of the Area Social and Economic Development (the Cases of Regional Development Programs of 2008-2013 and Special Economic Zones)

Current research aims to evaluate the impact of some public programs/projects of regional social and economic development and provide recommendations to improve regional programming and its justification. To achieve this goal, methods of difference-in-difference and case studies were used. Following tasks were solved during the research process: 1. Analysis of the main relevant terms and definitions, e.g. territory, region, development, program, project etc. and their inter-relations. 2. Analysis of Russian and foreign methodologies and practices of the evaluation of public programs. 3. Analysis of the implementation of regional development programs and Federal program «Special Economic Zones». 4. Selection and justification of the evaluation methodology for selected programs and cases. 5. Elaboration of the empirical model for the selected programs evaluation. 6. Case study of successful and unsuccessful examples of Special Economic Zones projects implementation. 7. Preparation of recommendations for regional programming of socio-economic development and for programs evaluation and justification. As a result several conclusions were made: 1. Russian public policy of regional development is well justified to provide support for backward and less developed regions, steps of further development in this direction are clear. 2. The section of the Federal program “Development of regions” is better justified and more successfully implemented than Federal program “Special Economic Zones”. 3. For successful realization of the long-term programs the region should clearly define its role and functions in providing necessary preconditions for implementation of planned activities and projects.