Impact Evaluation : Techniques for Evaluating Active Labor Market Programs

Impact Evaluation : Techniques for Evaluating Active Labor Market Programs

Over the past 40 years, "active" labor market programs (ALMPs) have emerged as an important employment policy tool. Their objective is primarily economic - to increase the probability that the unemployed will find jobs or that the...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Dar, Amit
Format: Brief
Language:English
Published: World Bank, Washington, DC 2012
Subjects:
ACTIVE LABOR MARKET PROGRAMS
BEST PRACTICE
COMPARISON GROUPS
COMPUTER SKILLS
CONTROL GROUPS
COUNTERFACTUAL
DATA REQUIREMENTS
DATA SOURCES
ENTERPRISE DEVELOPMENT
EVALUATION CAPACITY
EVALUATION METHODOLOGY
EVALUATION RESEARCH
EVALUATION RESULTS
EVALUATION STANDARDS
EVALUATION TECHNIQUES
EVALUATORS
EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN
EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES
EXPERIMENTS
GDP
IMPACT EVALUATION
INTERVENTION
LABOR MARKETS
LEARNING
MANAGERS
METHODOLOGIES
PERFORMANCE MONITORING
PROBABILITY
PROGRAM BENEFICIARIES
PROGRAM EFFECTIVENESS
PROGRAM IMPACTS
PROGRAM OUTCOMES
PROGRAMS
PROJECT IMPACTS
QUANTITATIVE EVALUATION
REGRESSION ANALYSIS
RESEARCH RESULTS
RESEARCHERS
SAMPLE SIZE
SELECTION BIAS
TARGETING
TECHNIQUES
TIME LAG
TREATMENT GROUPS
UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS
WAGES
Online Access:http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2002/12/5162872/impact-evaluation-techniques-evaluating-active-labor-market-programs
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/11829
Description
Summary:Over the past 40 years, "active" labor market programs (ALMPs) have emerged as an important employment policy tool. Their objective is primarily economic - to increase the probability that the unemployed will find jobs or that the underemployed will increase their productivity and earnings. ALMPs include job search assistance, training and retraining, and job creation programs (public works, micro-enterprise development, and wage subsidies). With economic reform, increasing liberalization of markets and growing concerns about the problems of unemployment, ALMPs have increasingly become an attractive option for policymakers. Expenditure on these programs has, however, not increased substantially over the 1990s, remaining fairly constant at around 0.7% of GDP. This reflects to some extent the ambivalence of policymakers about the effectiveness of ALMPs. A frequently asked question is, "Are these programs effective?" This note will focus on impact evaluations of ALMPs. It will discuss the objectives and importance of rigorous evaluations, highlight commonly used impact evaluation techniques, and discuss who should conduct evaluations.

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