Six Steps to Heaven: Evaluating the Impact of Public Policies to Support Small Businesses in Developed Economies.

This paper presents a methodology for evaluating the impact of public policies to assist the small business sector. The author reviews the various methodological approaches to evaluating small business support policies in developed economies. An analytical framework with six approaches is provided, beginning with the most simple and ending with the most sophisticated. These six steps include (1) take-up of schemes, (2) recipients' opinions, (3) recipients' views of the difference made by the assistance, (4) comparison of the performance of "assisted" with "typical" firms, (5) comparison with match firms, and (6) taking account of selection bias. Steps 1 to 3 are considered monitoring, with Steps 4 to 6 being evaluation. The difference between the two is that evaluations are attempts, demonstrating analytical rigor, to determine the impact of the policy initiatives. Monitoring either documents activity under the program or reports participants' perception of the value of the scheme.