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This paper evaluates small and medium enterprise (SME) support programs in Chile using a firm-level panel for the 1992-2006 period on two groups of firms - a treatment group that participated in SME programs and a control group that did not. These unique panel data provide an unprecedented opportunity to address several issues that have plagued impact evaluations of SME programs - selectivity bias from observed and unobserved firm heterogeneity, identification of an appropriate control group, and inability to track firms over a long enough period of time for performance outcomes to be realized. Using difference-in-differences models combined with propensity score matching methods, the paper finds evidence that participation in SME programs in Chile is associated with improvements in intermediate outcomes (training, adoption of new technology and organizational practices), and causally with positive and statistically significant impacts on sales, production, labor productivity, wages and exports. The mixed results of previous studies may be attributable in part to the confounding effects of unobserved heterogeneity motivating selection into programs of firms with relatively low productivity levels, and in part to time-effects of program participation occurring in years after the time horizon of most impact evaluation studies.

Beneficiaries --- Business development --- Business development services --- Control groups --- Economic sectors --- ICT Policy and Strategies --- Impact Evaluation --- Industrial Enterprises --- Industry association --- Information and Communication Technologies --- Information systems --- Innovations --- Intermediate outcomes --- Labor Policies --- Matching methods --- Microfinance --- Poverty Impact Evaluation --- Poverty Monitoring and Analysis --- Poverty Reduction --- Programs --- Research centers --- Social Protections and Labor --- Targeting --- Technology transfer --- Training activities --- Training institutes --- Training programs

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This report compares the postschool training experiences of young men in the United States, Great Britain, and Australia, using the National Longitudinal Survey of Young Men for the United States, and male samples from Britain's National Child Development Study and the Australian Longitudinal Survey of Youth. The authors use these data to document and compare the incidence of youth training not only at labor market entry, but over the early work career. They consider formal training from employers and from such off-the-job sources as business and technical institutes, industry training centers, and schools. They consider several broad issues: (1) whether education and work-related training are complementary or substitute forms of skill investments; (2) the roles technology plays in shaping educational and skill needs in the workplace; (3) whether unions inhibit job training; and (4) how patterns of training in the three countries compare.

Occupational training

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This report aims to provide Department of Defense policymakers with better information regarding the effects of demographic and macroeconomic variables and policy instruments, such as recruiting resources and relative military pay, on the supply of non-prior service (NPS) reserve personnel. A database was developed to estimate the effects of reserve recruiters, goals, relative military and civilian pay, the qualified youth population available to enlist in the military, and local unemployment rates on NPS enlistments in three Selected Reserve components: Army Reserve, Army National Guard, and Naval Reserve. The effects of competition for NPS recruits--both among reserve components and between the active and reserve components--were also investigated. Forecasts of NPS reserve enlistments were developed to assess the attainability of NPS projected goals under alternative economic scenarios.

United States --- United States --- Armed Forces --- Reserves. --- Armed Forces --- Recruiting, enlistment, etc.

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The Philippines has experienced overall growth over these last twenty years, but the growth of the manufacturing sector has been sluggish and the country has lost innovation capacity. Re-gaining momentum will depend on many factors, but skills have a key role to play to support the growing service sector, help improve the competitiveness of the manufacturing sector, and, in general, enhance the long-term ability of the country to innovate and adapt and assimilate new technologies. This book analyzes the functional skills that workers need to be equipped with to be employable and support firms' competitiveness and productivity and the role of the education and training system in providing them. It is the most comprehensive attempt so far to review the skills that matter to employers using an innovative employer skill survey. The book reveals that a dramatic increase in educational attainment occurred in just under two decades in the Philippines. However, in view of the growing demand for skills, the book also makes clear that there are initial indications of emerging skills gaps, suggesting that skills are becoming a constraining factor for the economy. Several policy implications are fleshed out for the supply of skills in the country, both overall and by education and training sub-sector, which we expect to be a valuable contribution to the improvement of the education and training system. This book is primarily intended to the policy makers which shape the delivery of education and training in the Philippines and other middle-income countries.

Employment -- Philippines. --- Labor market -- Philippines. --- Vocational qualifications -- Philippines. --- Labor market --- Skilled labor --- Life skills --- Supply and demand --- Basic life skills --- Competencies, Functional --- Coping skills --- Everyday living skills --- Functional competencies --- Fundamental life skills --- Lifeskills --- Living skills --- Personal life skills --- Problems of everyday living, Skills for solving --- Skills, Life --- Employees --- Market, Labor --- Supply and demand for labor --- Ability --- Social learning --- Labor --- Markets

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Inadequacies in Tanzania's education and training systems compromise the quality of workforce skills, giving rise to skill shortages, and constraining the operations and growth of formal sector firms in the country. This study addressed these concerns using data from a unique Enterprise Skills Survey that asked Tanzanian employers about the education, training, and occupational mix of their workforce, the skill gaps in cognitive, noncognitive, and job-specific competencies affecting their operations, and the strategies they are using to overcome these skill gaps. The study investigates the consequences for firm productivity of employers' choices about their optimal skills mix, and their strategies to mitigate shortfalls in skills supply. Compared with noninnovators and firms primarily serving the domestic market, exporters and innovators face greater skill demand and suffer from skill shortages that are more likely to constrain their operations in such areas as quality assurance, use of new technology, and introducing new products and services. In analyzing firm performance and its relation to skill mix, the study found that firms with higher shares of tertiary-educated workers are more productive; it found no impact, however, from secondary education and technical vocational education and training qualifications, possibly reflecting the universally acknowledged poor quality of secondary education in Tanzania. Employers use a range of strategies to address skill deficiencies, from hiring new workers, to training current workers in-house or externally, using high-skill expatriate workers, or outsourcing professional services. Almost all were associated with higher labor productivity. The exception, employer provided in-house training, had no measurable impact on productivity.

Access & Equity in Basic Education --- Demand and Supply of Labor --- Education --- Education for All --- Effective Schools & Teachers --- Firm Performance --- ICT Policy and Strategies --- Information and Communication Technologies --- Primary Education --- Skills --- Training