Translation glossary: OECD Glossary

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Absorption rate

Budgetary inputs mobilised in proportion to the inputs initially allocated.

English

Obligation, for the actors participating in the introduction or implementation of a public intervention, to provide political authorities and the general public with information and explanations on the expected and actual results of an intervention, with regard to the sound use of public resources. From a democratic perspective, accountability is an important dimension of evaluation. Public authorities are progressively increasing their requireme

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Accountable Body (N)

The organisation responsible in a contractual sense for the intervention, with the key responsibilities of ensuring that the programme is managed in accordance with required standards of financial probity, and in line with the agreed action plan, and any programme specific funding criteria.

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Action research (N)

\"Practice-based research, which seeks to end the dislocation of research from practice and enhance the position of research as a direct mechanism for change and improvement. Action research projects usually have the following characteristics: investigation of practices in terms of strategic actions with potential for improvement; collaborative working between evaluators and stakeholders; a methodology involving a series of interelated cycles of

English

Additionality has been one of the principles of EU Structural Fund interventions. Additionality means that Community support for economic and social development is not substituted for efforts by national governments. In other words, the fact that the beneficiary State\'s own financing remains, globally, at least equal to that which existed before the Structural Funds\' contribution. Verification of the implementation of this principle is carried

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Administrative data (N)

Information relating to the administration of the Programme usually collected through a structured monitoring process. Not necessarily for the purposes of evaluation.

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Broad intention, usually to bring about positive change.

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\"Verification of the legality and regularity of the application of resources. Auditing makes a judgement in terms of general criteria and standards, known and clarified beforehand. For example, in the case of assistance to a SME, an audit will check whether eligibility criteria have been met and whether the beneficiary firms have complied with the rules governing the use of assistance. The main purpose of an audit is to ensure compliance. The

English

The prevailing score. There are three types of average. The Mean which is the sum of all the scores divided by the number of scores. The mode which is the most frequent score and the medium which is the middle of a set of scores. The use of different averages depends upon the scale qualities of the data.

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State of the economic, social or environmental context, at a given time (generally at the beginning of the intervention), and against which changes will be measured. The basic situation is described by context indicators which describe the economy, socio-economic environment, concerned groups, etc.

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Qualitative and quantitative standard for comparison of the performance of an intervention. Such a standard will often be the best in the same domain of intervention or in a related domain. Benchmarking is facilitated when, at the national or regional level, there is comparative information of good and not so good practice. The term benchmarking is also used to refer to the comparison of contextual conditions between territories.

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Beneficiary (N)

\"Person or organisation directly affected by the intervention whether intended or unintended. Beneficiaries receive support, services and information, and use facilities created with the support of the intervention (e.g. a family which uses a telephone network that has been improved with public intervention support, or a firm which has received assistance or advice). Some people may be beneficiaries without necessarily belonging to the group tar

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Call for proposals (N)

A call for proposals is a process through which organisations are requested to submit proposals to undertake work / research that matches the requirements of a brief / research question. Organisationb then submit tenders to carry out the research / project, which usually involves providing details of the proposed research methodology.

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In-depth study of data on a specific case (e.g. a project, beneficiary, town). The case study is a detailed description of a case in its context. It is an appropriate tool for the inductive analysis of impacts and particularly of innovative interventions for which there is no prior explanatory theory. Case study results are usually presented in a narrative form. A series of case studies can be carried out concurrently, in a comparative and potent

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Causal analysis

The study of relations of cause and effect which link a public intervention to its impacts. Causality analysis may be inductive. In this case, it investigates the mechanisms likely to produce impacts, as well as confounding factors likely to have an influence. Causality analysis may also be deductive (or hypothetico-deductive). In this case, it examines whether assumptions about impacts are not contradicted by the facts. It may also supply a quan

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Citizen\'s juries (N)

A panel of 12-16 members of the public brought together to consider a public policy issue posed by an authority or evaluation commissioning body. The jury might sit over 3/4 days and be assisted by neutral facilitators - and are expected to reach a conclusion or form a judgement.

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Cluster analysis (N)

A data analysis tool for solving classification problems. Its aim is to sort cases (people, things, events, etc) into groups, or clusters, so that the degree of association is strong between members of the same cluster and weak between members of different clusters.

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Technique used to run meetings, based on a visual presentation of opinions in a group. In an evaluation situation in which several stakeholders are involved, it can be used to structure discussion and collective reflection by facilitating the expression of all points of view. It is therefore a tool likely to enhance the impartiality of the evaluation in the context of a pluralistic approach. It may be used to clarify and grade evaluative question

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Person or organisation which decides to launch an evaluation. Commissioners have the advantage of making their priorities explicit by establishing a mandate. A commissioner will steer the work of an evaluation team either directly or through a multi-stakeholder steering group or other evaluation authority set up for this purpose.

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Quality of an indicator which uses the same measurement unit to quantify the needs, objectives or effects of several different interventions. Comparability is useful for establishing norms for judgement (e.g. the average cost of jobs created by the intervention can be favourably compared to that of similar interventions). Efforts made to improve comparability involve the harmonisation of measurement units and result, initially, in the definition

English

Competitiveness

The capacity of a firm, in a competitive socio-economic environment, to defend or increase its market share over the medium and longer term, and to generate wealth. The notion of competitiveness can apply to a single firm or to all the businesses in a sector or region. It is directly related to the notion of competitive advantage, an advantage which an enterprise, region or sector must possess or develop if it is to be competitive in a segment of

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Complementarity

The fact that several public interventions (or several components of an intervention) contribute towards the achievement of the same objective. Complementarity may be functional, if the objective is functional (e.g. developing a sector or creating a network). It may be territorial, if the objective concerns a territory (e.g. integrated local development policy).

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Completion rate

Percentage of initially planned outputs which have been completed. The completion rate of a major infrastructure project is calculated in terms of the stages of work which were initially planned and were actually completed. The completion rate of an intervention is the weighted average of the completion rates of the projects comprising that intervention. The completion rate is a core indicator for monitoring the implementation of an intervention.

English

Concept mapping of impacts

Tool used for the clarification of underlying concepts which may include explicit and implicit objectives. It relies on the identification, grouping together and rating of expected outcomes and impacts. The concept mapping of impacts is implemented in a participatory way, so that a large number of participants or stakeholders can be involved. It may result in the selection of indicators that are associated with the main expected impacts.

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Confounding factor

Factors independent of a public intervention which are partly or entirely the cause of changes observed among beneficiaries (gross effects). A confounding factor can hinder or amplify an expected impact. For example, employment increased by 10% in a group of assisted firms. However, this increase could not be imputed entirely to the public intervention because the assisted firms also benefited from a favourable macro-economic context (confounding

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Construct validity

Quality of an evaluation method which faithfully reflects the construct, concept or theorised \'object\' of evaluation. It must be expressed in sufficiently precise terms so that that observations in the field allow for a reliable and sensitive analysis of the object being observed. For example, if the impact of support for innovation must be estimated by means of a survey of regional SMEs, the notion of innovation must have been defined precisel

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Constructivism (N)

A philosophical position within the social sciences which asserts that human knowledge is not developed exogenously but through individual experiences and social interactions. It claims that what observation allows us to describe are in part at least constructed by the observer - the world is not fully observable. It emphasises the responsive, interactive, dialogic and ‘orchestrating’ role of the evaluator because the sources of data that a

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The socio-economic environment in which an intervention is implemented. The term is used in its broadest sense. For example, in the case of interventions in favour of SMEs, the context includes the macro-economic situation and the framework conditions (tax laws, company law, etc.).

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Comparison group consisting of eligible people or organisations which have been excluded from all participation in the intervention by a process of random selection. Apart from its non-participation in the intervention, the control group is, from every point of view, comparable to the group of participants. It has also been exposed to the same variations in the socio-economic context (confounding factors). When a group of participants and a contr

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The fact that two variables systematically evolve in the same direction or in opposite directions. If there is little covariance, there is no statistically reliable relationship between them. A large degree of covariance between A and B indicates an assumption of causality but does not prove it. (Is A the cause of B? or is B the cause of A? or are A and B the consequence of something else?).

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Cost-benefit analysis

Tool for judging the advantages of the intervention from the point of view of all the groups concerned, and on the basis of a monetary value attributed to all the positive and negative consequences of the intervention (which must be estimated separately). When it is neither relevant nor possible to use market prices to estimate a gain or a loss, a fictive price can be set in various ways. The first consists of estimating the willingness of benefi

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Cost-effectiveness analysis

Evaluation tool for making a judgement in terms of effectiveness. This tool consists of relating the net effects of the intervention (which must be determined separately) to the financial inputs needed to produce those effects. The judgement criterion might, for example, be the cost per unit of impact produced (e.g. cost per job created). This unit cost is then compared to that of other interventions chosen as benchmarks.

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Counterfactual situation

A situation which would have occurred in the absence of a public intervention. For example, a firm was assisted so that its employees could be retrained in new technologies. No redundancies were recorded in the following two years. It is estimated that without the assistance (counterfactual situation) 50 jobs would have been lost. By comparing the counterfactual and real situations, it is possible to determine the net effects of the public interv

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Percentage of the eligible group which was actually affected by an intervention. The coverage rate is a result indicator which is important to quantify for monitoring purposes. The exposure rate is used to indicate the portion of the population targeted, which received information on the programme.

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Quality of the results and conclusions of an evaluation when they are logically supported by empirical facts and justified by an analysis of valid data. Credibility depends on several factors, including: reliability of data, soundness of the method, but also the reputation of the evaluator.

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\"Character, property or consequence of a public intervention on the basis of which a judgement will be formulated. For example, an employment incentive programme may be judged in terms of \"\"costs per job created\"\" or \"\"percentage of support benefiting the long-term unemployed\"\" (in the latter case, it is assumed that the higher the percentage, the better the intervention). An evaluation criterion should be explicit, that is, it must clea

English

Cross sectional data

\"Data collected in a comparative way, at a given time, on several categories of individuals or facts. For example: comparative unemployment rates in European regions; comparative placement rates for women and men.\"

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Change observed among direct beneficiaries following the public intervention, or reported by direct addressees as a consequence of the public intervention, that would have occurred, even without the intervention. For example: a farmer received assistance for the building of a self-catering cottage. In the survey he stated that the support had enabled him to create better quality facilities, but that he would have built the cottage, even without s

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Procedure for iterative and anonymous consultation of several experts, aimed at directing their opinions towards a common conclusion. The Delphi panel technique may be used in ex ante evaluation, for estimating the potential impacts of an intervention and later to consider evaluation findings.

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Demand-side effect

The effect of an intervention which spreads through growing intermediate consumption of enterprises (supplier effect) and through the income generated within the region, and which, in turn, generates spending by households (multiplier effect).

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Developmental evaluation (N)

Evaluation processess, including asking questions and applying evaluation logic, to support program, project, product and/or organisational development. The evaluator is part of a team whose members collaborate to conceptualise, design and test new approaches in a long-term ongoing process of continuous improvement, adaptation and intentional change.

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Differences in differences (N)

A way to estimate causal relationships, which consists of identifying a specific intervention or treatment. A comparison is then made between the difference in outcomes prior to and subsequent to the intervention for groups affected by it to this difference for unaffected groups.

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\"Effects of a public intervention on its direct beneficiary, excluding all repercussions on other groups. For example: investment support has direct effects on assisted businesses (production costs and capacity; creation or maintenance of jobs). New infrastructure has a direct effect on the people and enterprises which use it.\"

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The fact that a region or group of people are in a situation which differs significantly from others. In general, the rationale of programmes financed by the EU Structural Funds consists of reducing socio-economic disparities between regions or social groups.

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Displacement effect

\"Effect obtained in an eligible area at the expense of another area. Displacement effects may be intended (e.g. displacement of a public administration from the capital to a \'lagging\' region) or unintended (e.g. 10% of the jobs created by a regional development programme resulted in the disappearance of jobs in other eligible regions; a firm used programme assistance to move its premises from the centre to the outskirts of a town). When they a

English

Distributional effects (N)

The differential effects of a policy reform, or the introduction of a new programme or policy on various groups / individuals. Distributional effects are often assessed ex-ante in order to anticipate impacts and ensure that policies do not bring unexpected results.

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Diversification

Deployment of the production of a firm or a region beyond its traditional specialisation, with a view to creating new activities and/or setting up in new market segments.

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Econometric analysis (N)

The application of econometric modelsl used to simulate the main mechanisms of a regional, national or international economic system. A large number of models exist, based on widely diverse macro-economic theories. This type of tool is often used to simulate future trends, but it may also serve as a tool in the evaluation socio-economic programmes. In this case, it is used to simulate a counterfactual situation, and thus to quantitatively evaluat

English

Economic and social cohesion

This has two meanings. In European Union policy it refers to reducing unacceptable gaps between regions, territorial categories (e.g. urban / rural) or social groups, from the point of view of their level of economic development and social integration. Economic and social cohesion relates to disparities in regional income and quality of life, as well as to all differences between social groups\' access to socio-economic resources including emplo

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Economic Impact Assessment (N)

Economic impact assessment is about tracking or anticipating the economic impact of an intervention. It depends on analysing the cause and effect of an intervention and is important in project appraisal. It can be undertaken before, during or after projects to assess the amount of value added by a given intervention and whether it is justified.

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