Evaluation of the Australian Wage Subsidy Special Youth ...

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The magnitude of the employment effect falls, but only slightly. The dramatic changes to
the statistical significance of the employment effect when CEP referrals is dropped might
be attributed to the relatively large fall in the number of comparison cases used to match
against the SYETP. This has a role in reducing the efficiency that in turn causes the fall
in statistical significance. However, further discussion of the results is now deferred until
after the estimation of a new specification.
Table 7.5 Matching results, Single nearest neighbour with replacement, within caliper,
weighting the propensity with combined weights: vary specification
Match with
caliper width
0.001
Original
specification
Match with
caliper width
0.001
Original
specification,
Don’t include
cep referrals
Match with
caliper width
0.001
New reduced
specification
Difference in employment 163 for 0.08 0.06 0.18
matched treated and comparisons
t statistic 1.57 164 0.53 4.72**
Total SYETP available 104 104 109
Number of SYETP matched 87 85 104
% SYETP matched 84% 82% 95%
Number of comparison which satisfy 80 75 93
the caliper rule
Number of times used
1 73 68 83
2 7 5 9
More than 2 2 1
Mean difference in propensity score 0.0002 0.0002 0.0002
between single nearest neighbour
matched treated and comparisons
Standard deviation 0.0002 0.0003 0.0002
Mean standardized bias 11.04 16.15 14.48
Common support cases dropped from
syetp before matching
1 1 0
Number of observations 1283 1283 1389
Weighting protocol: weight propensity, weight the match using the treated weight only. The weighted mean
bias is calculated using svymean in Stata. * significant at 10 % l.o.s., ** 5% l.o.s.
163 Ever employed in 1986 survey.
164 Probability of (0.22).