Chapters 5 and 6 contain economic evaluations of, respectively, the investment support to farm holdings and the investment support to food processing firms in the Swedish rural development programme for the period 2007-2013. The results are intended to offer guidance for potential changes during the present and the next programme period.

Both support measures are evaluated by means of counter factual analysis using matched controls. The empirical material consists of longitudinal firm-level data for, respectively, a 5-year (farm holdings) and a 7-year period (food processing firms). For both farm holdings and food processing firms indicate that that the supports have increased investment, employment and short term growth to a limited extent. However, there are no effects on total factor productivity, labour productivity or on the use of primary inputs.