Rok Spruk

Economist · Institutions · Causal Inference

Rok Spruk

Associate Professor of Economics
School of Economics and Business, University of Ljubljana

  • Adjunct Research Fellow, University of Western Australia
  • Associate Editor, International Review of Law and Economics and Acta Oeconomica
  • Adviser to the European Commission (DG REGIO) on regional policy evaluation

What would Iran, Argentina or Syria look like had the revolution, the reform or the war never happened? I build those counterfactuals and measure the difference.

Explore the research → Press kit Invite to speak
Portrait of Rok Spruk
LjubljanaPhD, Utrecht 2016
Peer-reviewed
49journal articles since 2013
Bergson Prize
2026Best paper, Association for Comparative Economic Studies
RePEc
Top 5%of registered economists, ten-year output
Econometric Society
2020 · 2025World Congress, Milan and Seoul

The method

History, re-run without the shock

A synthetic control builds a weighted composite of comparable countries that tracks the treated country before an event. After the event, the gap between the two lines is the estimated cost or dividend of that event.

The same logic runs through papers on the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Syria's civil war, Danish trans-fat rules and Spain's devolution.

See the papers → Stata code for exposure-augmented SCM →
Treated country Synthetic control Illustrative data
Hover or drag across the chart to read the gap. Index, year before event = 100.

Latest

News

  1. Oct 2026

    New study published by the European Union. Counterfactual Impact Evaluation of Cohesion Policy, a matrix completion evaluation of the 2014–2022 cycle for DG REGIO: Cohesion Policy worked as a regional stabiliser, above all for jobs. Read it.

  2. 2026

    Bergson Prize. Best paper award from the Association for Comparative Economic Studies.

  3. Aug 2026

    New working paper. Public Signals, Concealed Choices: Dynamic Measurement without Behavioral Identification.

  4. Forthcoming

    Counterfactual Identification of Institutional Rupture, on Venezuela's constitutional transformation, with N. Garoupa and V. Rosales. Journal of Law and Empirical Analysis.

  5. Feb 2026

    European Commission, Brussels. Talk on counterfactual evaluation of EU Cohesion Policy at the 10th Regional Policy Evaluation conference, building on his synthetic control report for the Commission's ex post evaluation of 2014–2020.

  6. Spring 2026

    National Affairs covers the work in “Detailing the Regime”.

  7. Aug 2025

    Econometric Society World Congress, Seoul. Presented the Venezuela judicial-independence paper.

Commentary

HaaretzJan 2023

This is how Israel's economy could succumb to populism

El PaísJan 2024

La pesada carga de la regulación

SubstackNewsletter

A Diary of Non-Random Observations

Policy advice

European Commission · DG Regional and Urban Policy

Did EU Cohesion Policy work? Two counterfactual studies for the European Commission

Rok Spruk advises the Commission on regional policy evaluation. Two studies estimate what Cohesion funding changed in EU regions, each with a different counterfactual method.

Newly published · 2026Official EU publication

Counterfactual Impact Evaluation of Cohesion Policy

Matrix completion approach with new data, including a focus on specific types of region

Policy cycle
2014–2022
Method
Matrix completion and dynamic expenditure models

Key findingCohesion Policy acted as an important regional stabiliser in an exceptionally difficult period for the European economy. Its most robust contribution was labour-market resilience, especially lower unemployment. Effects on output, productivity and innovation were more selective, depending on industrial structure, administrative capacity, economic geography and the fund involved.

Read the official EU publication ↗ 2025CE16BAT084

Final report · July 2025Ex post evaluation, Work Package 3

Counterfactual Impact Evaluation of Cohesion Policy 2014–2020: Synthetic Control

Recipient regions
209
Donor regions
~149
Outcomes
GDP per capita, labour productivity, sectoral employment, unemployment
Method
Dynamic synthetic control in a difference-in-differences design

Written as the synthetic control study of the Commission's ex post evaluation of the ERDF and Cohesion Fund 2014–2020. Sole author.

Read the final report ↗ The 2014–2020 ex post evaluation ↗

Findings in brief

What the evidence shows, in one line each

All papers →

Research programme

Why institutions succeed, fail, and leave a mark that lasts a century

Seven lines of work across economic history, law and economics, and political economy. Choose one to open the matching papers.

Selected publications

Six papers to start with

All 49 articles →

    Work featured in

    El PaísHaaretzNational AffairsEl ConfidencialCato UnboundInter-American DialogueNada es Gratis

    Policy makers, editors and producers

    Evidence on sanctions, courts, revolutions and peace, available for briefings in five languages

    Press kit Get in touch