The Local Allocation of EU Funds in Slovakia: Determinants of Success in Project Submissions in 2014-2020

Abstract

The objective of the paper is to identify the determinants of the success rate of submitted projects for European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) funding for municipalities in Slovakia in the 2014-2020 programming period. Regressors used in the created econometric model include proxies for project writing experience, municipalities' demographics, and financial indicators. In the model, we also use other characteristics: the share of projects that were submitted by female mayors of municipalities and the share of projects approved for a municipality whose mayor was supported in the previous elections by the parliamentary parties participating in the government between 2014 and 2020. Our results indicate that experience with submitting grants, the unemployment rate, the share of the population in productive age, debt per capita and affiliation to a political party, and women's leadership have a significant relationship with the success rate of municipal project proposals, although not always in the direction we expected.