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Do Government Subsidies Stimulate Training Expenditure? Microeconometric Evidence from Plant Level Data

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  • Görg, Holger

    (Kiel Institute for the World Economy)

  • Strobl, Eric

    (University of Bern)

Abstract

This paper examines whether financial assistance provided by government induces firms to spend more of their own funds on training expenditures, using plant level data for the Republic of Ireland. We pay particular attention to the potential problems in such an evaluation study, namely selectivity and endogeneity, by first identifying a valid counterfactual for grant receiving plants via a matching estimator and then employing a difference-in-differences technique on this matched sample. Our results show that there are differences in causal effects between domestic and foreign owned plants. For the former we find clear evidence that grant receipt stimulates private expenditure, while there are no statistically significant effects for foreign-owned plants based in Ireland.

Suggested Citation

  • Görg, Holger & Strobl, Eric, 2005. "Do Government Subsidies Stimulate Training Expenditure? Microeconometric Evidence from Plant Level Data," IZA Discussion Papers 1606, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1606
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    Cited by:

    1. van den Berg, Gerard J. & Dauth, Christine & Homrighausen, Pia & Stephan, Gesine, 2018. "Informing Employees in Small and Medium Sized Firms about Training: Results of a Randomized Field Experiment," IZA Discussion Papers 11963, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Singer, Christine & Toomet, Ott-Siim, 2013. "On government-subsidized training programs for older workers," IAB-Discussion Paper 201321, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany].
    3. Laia Castany, 2008. "The Role of Firm Size in Training Provision Decisions: evidence from Spain," Economics of Education Working Paper Series 0028, University of Zurich, Department of Business Administration (IBW).
    4. Santos, Eleonora & Khan, Shahed, 2018. "Determinant Factors of Pecuniary Externalities," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 6(8), pages 180-198.
    5. Laia Castany, 2010. "The role of size in firms' training: evidence from Spain," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 31(5), pages 563-584, August.
    6. Nolan, Anne, 2006. "Evaluating the Impact of Eligibility for Free Care on the Use of GP Services in Ireland: A Difference-in-Difference Matching Approach," Papers HRBWP25, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    7. Floreani, Vincent Arthur, 2014. "Fixing Europe's youth unemployment and skills mismatch, can public financial support to SMEs be effective? The case of the European Commission and European Investment Bank joint initiatives," MPRA Paper 55849, University Library of Munich, Germany.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    difference-in-differences; training; government grants; matching;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • H25 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Business Taxes and Subsidies

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