We investigate conditions sufficient for identification of average treatment effects using instrumental variables. First we show that the existence of valid instruments is not sufficient to identify any meaningful average treatment effect. We then establish that the combination of an instrument and a condition on the relation between the instrument and the participation status is sufficient for identification of a local average treatment effect for those who can be induced to change their participation status by changing the value of the instrument. Finally we derive the probability limit of the standard IV estimator under these conditions. It is seen to be a weighted average of local average treatment effects.

Evolution and Rationality Some Recent Game-Theoretic Results. Identification and Estimation of Local Average Treatment Effects

Since the mid-1960’s the Netherlands has had an immigration surplus, mainly because of manpower recruitment from Turkey and Morocco and immigration from the former Dutch colony of Surinam. Immigrants have a weak labor market position, which is related to their educational level and language skills. Children and grandchildren of immigrants are expected to have a better chance of integration into Dutch society. In this paper we investigate whether this is true with respect to the educational attainment of second generation immigrants from Turkey, Morocco, Surinam and the Dutch Antilles.

The Educational Attainment of Second Generation Immigrants in the Netherlands

15 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 17 Background 17 Objectives 17 Search methods 17 Selection criteria 18 Data collection and analysis 18 Results 19 Conclusions 21 1 BACKGROUND 24 1.1 The research problem: why youth employment? 24 1.2 The intervention: ALMPs for youth 26 1.3 How the ALMPs are supposed to work 27 1.3.1 Training and skills development 28 1.3.2 Entrepreneurship promotion 32 1.3.3 Employment services 37 1.3.4 Subsidized employment 41 1.4 Why the review is needed 46

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.4073/csr.2017.12

Interventions to Improve the Labour Market Outcomes of Youth: A Systematic Review of Training, Entrepreneurship Promotion, Employment Services and Subsidized Employment Interventions

SUMMARY

To increase the exit from welfare, benefit recipients in the municipality of Rotterdam were exposed to various financial incentives. Once their benefit spell exceeded one year, welfare recipients were entitled to a re-employment bonus if they found a job that lasted at least 6 months. However, they could also be punished for noncompliance with eligibility requirements and face a sanction, i.e. a temporary reduction of their benefits. We find that the financial sticks in the form of benefit sanctions were effective in stimulating the exit from welfare, while the financial carrots in the form of re-employment bonuses were not. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Carrot and stick : How reemployment bonuses and benefit sanctions affect exit rates from welfare

In this article, a mental health help-seeking model is offered as a framework for understanding cultural and contextual factors that affect ethnic minority adolescents' pathways into mental health services. The effects of culture and context are profound across the entire help-seeking pathway, from problem identification to choice of treatment providers. The authors argue that an understanding of these help-seeking pathways provides insights into ethnic group differences in mental health care utilization and that further research in this area is needed.

Cultural and contextual influences in mental health help seeking: A focus on ethnic minority youth : Clinical adolescent psychology: Developmental psychopathology and treatment

Labour Market Effects of the Polytechnic Education Reform: The Finnish Experience.

This paper evaluates the labour market effects of the introduction of the polytechnic education system in Finland. The polytechnic reform gradually transformed former vocational colleges into polytechnics. Since the timing of the reform differed across schools, we can compare the performance of polytechnic graduates to the performance of vocational college graduates controlling for both the year and the school effects. The results are somewhat sensitive to how the selectivity issues are treated but generally suggest that both the earnings and the employment levels of post-reform graduates are higher in the field of business and administration. The effects are much smaller and usually insignificant in other fields.

Labour Market Effects of the Polytechnic Education Reform: The Finnish Experience

We use data from the Finnish polytechnic reform to distinguish between human capital and signalling theories of the value of education. We find that the reform increased the earnings of polytechnic graduates compared with those graduating from the same schools before the reform, as predicted by both the human capital and the signalling models. However, we also find that the relative earnings of vocational college graduates decrease after polytechnic graduates start entering the labour market. This finding is inconsistent with the pure human capital model and can be interpreted as evidence that supports the signalling model.

Signalling or Human Capital: Evidence from the Finnish Polytechnic School Reform

This paper examines the youth guarantee programme introduced in Finland 2005. The reform consisted of early intervention, monitoring and individualized job search plans that guarantee activation measures for unemployed young persons. Using the age threshold set at 25 years, we find that the youth guarantee moderately increased unsubsidized employment while having a negligible impact on unemployment in the age range of 23-24. We also show that the positive impacts of the youth guarantee only materialize among unemployed young persons with a vocational education. There are no signs that the guarantee improved the labour market prospects of young uneducated people.

The Labour Market Impacts of a Youth Guarantee: Lessons for Europe?


 This article documents how children of immigrants cope in early adulthood in Finland. We first show that, on average, they have dramatically lower educational attainment than children of natives do. This difference can be attributed to age at arrival, parental income and neighborhood quality. In fact, Finnish-born children of immigrants obtain more education than children of natives growing up in the same zip codes and in families with similar parental income and family structure. Sibling comparisons suggest that age at arrival has a causal impact on educational attainment. The results are very similar for the likelihood of being idle and having been convicted of a crime, but are starkly different for the likelihood of having been reimbursed for psychotropic medication.

/pdf/age-at-arrival-parents-and-neighborhoods-understanding-the-1vx4g1wbb7.pdf

Ulla Hämäläinen

Papers

Labour Market Effects of the Polytechnic Education Reform: The Finnish Experience.

Labour Market Effects of the Polytechnic Education Reform: The Finnish Experience

Signalling or Human Capital: Evidence from the Finnish Polytechnic School Reform

The Labour Market Impacts of a Youth Guarantee: Lessons for Europe?

Age at arrival, parents and neighborhoods: understanding the educational attainment of immigrants’ children