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The Impact of Vocational Training for the Unemployed : Experimental Evidence from Turkey

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Published
2014-03
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2014-04-10
Author(s)
Hirshleifer, Sarojini
Ridao-Cano, Cristobal
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Abstract
A randomized experiment is used to evaluate a large-scale, active labor market policy: Turkey's vocational training programs for the unemployed. A detailed follow-up survey of a large sample with low attrition enables precise estimation of treatment impacts and their heterogeneity. The average impact of training on employment is positive, but close to zero and statistically insignificant, which is much lower than either program officials or applicants expected. Over the first year after training, the paper finds that training had statistically significant effects on the quality of employment and that the positive impacts are stronger when training is offered by private providers. However, longer-term administrative data show that after three years these effects have also dissipated.
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Hirshleifer, Sarojini; McKenzie, David; Almeida, Rita; Ridao-Cano, Cristobal. 2014. The Impact of Vocational Training for the Unemployed : Experimental Evidence from Turkey. Policy Research Working Paper;No. 6807. © http://hdl.handle.net/10986/17730 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.
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