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Evaluation of the Australian Wage Subsidy Special Youth ...

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23<br />

correlation for <strong>the</strong> error <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> employment equation and <strong>the</strong> characteristics affecting<br />

participation E( Z i ,u it ) = 0.<br />

The Heckman selection model assumes selection on unobservables and attempts to<br />

control for that, while propensity score matching assumes selection on observables. In <strong>the</strong><br />

later chapters, <strong>the</strong>se modelling methods and <strong>the</strong>ir assumptions are presented and applied.<br />

1.4 Brief comment on recent overseas evidence <strong>of</strong> wage subsidy evaluations<br />

This section reviews some existing information for wage subsidy programs in o<strong>the</strong>r<br />

countries. This appraisal is limited to recent evidence since <strong>the</strong> 1990’s, as older material<br />

is well reviewed elsewhere. Only micro-economic evaluation evidence is addressed. The<br />

main aim is to consolidate a general perspective <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> wage subsidy evidence found<br />

overseas. The exposition is <strong>the</strong>n not comprehensive with regard to <strong>the</strong> details <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong><br />

programs or a critical review <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> evaluation evidence. Instead, key <strong>the</strong>mes are<br />

identified.<br />

A number <strong>of</strong> published reviews provide recent overviews <strong>of</strong> wage subsidies and o<strong>the</strong>r<br />

programs. To avoid repetition, <strong>the</strong>ir conclusions are summarized here.<br />

Katz (1996) pp31-33 and Table 4 found that some targeted wage subsidies gave positive<br />

gains. It was found that <strong>the</strong> US Targeted Jobs Tax Credit and YIEPP private sector wage<br />

subsidy, might have modestly raised disadvantaged youth employment rates. However it<br />

was concluded that <strong>the</strong>re was little satisfactory formal evidence <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> impacts <strong>of</strong> wage<br />

subsidies, and that many studies were not compelling in <strong>the</strong>ir evidence due to flawed<br />

evaluation methods or poor data.<br />

Friedlander, Greenberg and Robins (1997) concentrate on US programs targeted on <strong>the</strong><br />

disadvantaged, including wage subsidies. However <strong>the</strong> focus <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> literature review was<br />

to get an overview <strong>of</strong> whe<strong>the</strong>r, as a whole, any social programs had gains for any groups<br />

<strong>of</strong> men, women and youths. The main recent wage subsidy program in <strong>the</strong> US has been<br />

<strong>the</strong> JTPA-II-A subsidised on-<strong>the</strong>-job training, for which a random assignment experiment

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