Evaluation of the Australian Wage Subsidy Special Youth ...

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separate these from the wide dissimilarities in the differing data, methods, environments,
subsidy conditions, and other sources of variation.
The appraisal of micro-evaluation evidence in Australia also shows the empirical
evidence for wage subsidies is not well established and suffers from similar deficiencies.
SYETP existed with a broad remit from 1976 to 1985. In the early 1980’s, the ‘Adult
Wage Subsidy Scheme’ (AWSS), and ‘General Training Assistance On-Job-Training’
(GTA-OTJ) briefly coexisted with SYETP, and then from 1985 to 1996, Jobstart replaced
SYETP. As well as being short-lived, both AWSS and GTA-OTJ were very small in
scale, with very little expenditure and few placements and GTA-OTJ was uniquely
discretionary in targeting making the eligible group difficult to define. The AWSS was
never evaluated and GTA-OTJ was only evaluated relative to other programs. The more
recent Jobstart was evaluated several times, mostly using exact matching but with very
limited variables, and data on comparisons drawn from surveys but no accounting for
non-response. Before 1980, evaluation of SYETP was not published and possibly did not
take place. Several evaluations of SYETP undertaken by Stretton (1982, 1984), Baker
(1984), Rao and Jones (1984), and Richardson (1998) were appraised in detail. All found
positive effects of SYETP on employment. All used survey data, but although most
discussed the potential for non-response and even modelled it, none acceptably accounted
for it in their evaluation estimations. Some evaluated SYETP relative to other programs,
such as GTA-OTJ and other training programs instead of a non-participant comparison
group, although the eligible groups do not always clearly overlap. Various forms of
regression modelling, such as logit, probit or ordered probit, were used, however only
Richardson (1998) accounted for selection using the Heckman selection model of SYETP
participation and employment. The inadequacies of past analyses of SYETP contributed
three themes to address: suitable modelling of selection to account for the influence of
observables or unobservables, dealing with non-response in the observational data, and
appropriate control for the differences between the SYETP and comparison groups.
The evidence for the economic environment and operation of SYETP provided a useful
understanding of the issues affecting the evaluation of SYETP. During the long period