Lindley, J., Mcintosh, S., Roberts, J. et al. (2 more authors) (2015) Policy evaluation via a statistical control: A non-parametric evaluation of the 'Want2Work' active labour market policy. Economic Modelling, 51. 635 - 645. ISSN 0264-9993
Abstract
© 2015 The Authors. Active labour market policies are popular tools used by governments to help get unemployed people back into work. It is a common problem that interventions of this type are often established with no equivalent control group on which to base an evaluation of programme effectiveness. This study uses propensity score matching to evaluate the success of an active labour market policy (the Welsh Assembly's 'Want2Work' programme) that cannot otherwise be evaluated using standard parametric techniques. Using a range of matching and estimation methods, sub-samples and types of job, the scheme was successful. Our most conservative estimate indicates that participants were 7 percentage points more likely to find employment than a control group of non-treated job-seekers. The method adopted here is a useful addition to the real world policy evaluation tool kit, where programme effectiveness needs to be judged in the absence of an established control group. Our results provide evidence that even those who are currently out of the labour market and on health related benefits can find work with the help of appropriately designed support.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
Keywords: | Active labour market policy; Statistical control; Propensity score matching |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Department of Economics (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 09 Nov 2015 12:06 |
Last Modified: | 09 Nov 2015 12:14 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.econmod.2015.09.018 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Elsevier |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1016/j.econmod.2015.09.018 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:91591 |