Information, Financial Aid and Training Participation: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment

No 9911, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: To increase employee participation in training activities, the German government introduced a large-scale training voucher program in 2008 that reduces training fees by half. Based on a randomized field experiment, this paper analyzes whether providing information about the existence and the conditions of the training voucher had an effect on actual training activities of employees. Because the voucher was newly introduced, only one-fourth of the eligible employees knew the voucher exists at the time of the experiment. The information intervention informed a random sample of eligible employees by telephone about the program details and conditions. The results indicate that the information significantly increased treated individuals' knowledge of the program but had no effect on voucher take-up or participation in training activities. Additional descriptive analyses suggest that the reasons for these zero effects are that the demand for self-financed training is low and that liquidity constraints do not discourage many employees from training participation.

Keywords: randomized field experiment; financial aid; voucher; training participation; information treatment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D83 H52 I22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 31 pages
Date: 2016-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur and nep-exp
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published - revised version published in: Labour Economics, 2017, 47, 138-148

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Related works:
Journal Article: Information, financial aid and training participation: Evidence from a randomized field experiment (2017)
Working Paper: Information, financial aid and training participation: Evidence from a randomized field experiment (2016)
Working Paper: Information, financial aid and training participation: Evidence from a randomized field experiment (2016)
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