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Jump-starting Self-employment? Evidence for Welfare Participants in Argentina

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  • Almeida, Rita K.
  • Galasso, Emanuela

Abstract

Summary We evaluate the effects of a self-employment program offered to welfare beneficiaries of a large safety net program in Argentina. The program promotes self-employment by providing financial and technical assistance. Our findings show that only a small and selected subset of welfare beneficiaries is attracted to this type of exit strategy (female household heads and more educated). Exploring non-experimental methods, we also show that in the short-run participation in the program affects the labor supply of participants, by reducing the probability of having an outside job and increasing the total number of hours worked. However, at least in the short-run, the intervention fails to produce income gains to the average participant.

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  • Almeida, Rita K. & Galasso, Emanuela, 2010. "Jump-starting Self-employment? Evidence for Welfare Participants in Argentina," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(5), pages 742-755, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:38:y:2010:i:5:p:742-755
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    18. Elbers, Chris & Gunning, Jan Willem, 2014. "Evaluation of non-governmental development organizations," WIDER Working Paper Series 026, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    19. Kluve, Jochen., 2016. "A review of the effectiveness of active labour market programmes with a focus on Latin America and the Caribbean," ILO Working Papers 994901193402676, International Labour Organization.
    20. Chris Elbers & Jan Willem Gunning, 2014. "Evaluation of Non-Governmental Development Organizations," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2014-026, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
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    23. Marco Mariani & Alessandra Mattei & Lorenzo Storchi & Daniele Vignoli, 2017. "The ambiguous effects of public assistance to youth and female start-ups between job creation and entrepreneurship enhancement," Econometrics Working Papers Archive 2017_04, Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Statistica, Informatica, Applicazioni "G. Parenti".

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