|
Field
Intervention (Hidden)
|
Before
The local employment agency in the province of Trento provides important training subsidies to craft firms, financed by the Autonomous Province of Trento. Despite a high coverage rate of the cost of training up to 100% of the total expenses, take-up is relatively low, with only 5% of craft firms having benefited from this financing channel in the past 3 years. This is consistent with the overall evidence from the literature that craft firms underinvest in training despite low costs and potentially high benefits. We run an information treatment experiment providing craft firms with information about the training activities done by their peers through the local Employment Agency. The aim is to evaluate the peer effects on individual firms’ training decisions and test whether providing information on peers can be used as a lever to induce more training. Through administrative databases, we obtain the universe of training financed by the local employment agency to craft firms. We construct the average share of craft firms in the province that have benefited from this financing channel in the past 3 years in each sector, the average amount of funding, the average number of hours, as well as the generic type of training (technical vs. Soft skills) and the most common titles of courses taken, namely the top 5 courses. We construct a dashboard that easily allows users to browse this information by selecting the sector of interest and potentially filtering by firms with and without employees (many craft firms are sole proprietorships with no employees).
For the primary analysis in this study, we mainly leverage two sources of data: i) firm-level demographic information (e.g., sector, class size, number of employees) on the universe of craft firms in the province derived from administrative archives; ii) information about all the training activities financed by the local employment agency to craft firms. In November 2024, a baseline survey (CAWI) was conducted on the population of craft firms in the Trento province to obtain information about the attitudes and propensity towards training in general (i.e., not specifically financed by the local employment agency). This baseline survey was administered to all craft firms in the province, achieving a 21% response rate. Aside from socio-demographic characteristics, the survey also collected detailed information on all training activities carried out (including those not funded by the Employment Agency), as well as on the type of training, funding sources, decision-making processes, and future investment plans in training. Similarly, a follow-up survey is planned to be conducted after the implementation of the intervention and before the end of June 2026, which marks the end of the training "season” for the current year (firms can sign up for training financed by the local employment agency roughly from September to June of a given year). The survey is meant to complement the main analysis on administrative data and allow for exploratory analysis of secondary outcomes, as detailed below. For this reason, sample stratification also includes a stratum for baseline survey respondents.
|
After
The local employment agency in the province of Trento provides important training subsidies to craft firms, financed by the Autonomous Province of Trento. Despite a high coverage rate of the cost of training up to 100% of the total expenses, take-up is relatively low, with only 5% of craft firms having benefited from this financing channel in the past 3 years. This is consistent with the overall evidence from the literature that craft firms underinvest in training despite low costs and potentially high benefits. We run an information treatment experiment providing craft firms with information about the training activities done by their peers through the local Employment Agency. The aim is to evaluate the peer effects on individual firms’ training decisions and test whether providing information on peers can be used as a lever to induce more training. Through administrative databases, we obtain the universe of training financed by the local employment agency to craft firms. We construct the average share of craft firms in the province that have benefited from this financing channel in the past 3 years in each sector, the average amount of funding, the average number of hours, as well as the generic type of training (technical vs. Soft skills) and the most common titles of courses taken, namely the top 5 courses. We construct a dashboard that easily allows users to browse this information by selecting the sector of interest and potentially filtering by firms with and without employees (many craft firms are sole proprietorships with no employees).
For the primary analysis in this study, we mainly leverage two sources of data: i) firm-level demographic information (e.g., sector, class size, number of employees) on the universe of craft firms in the province derived from administrative archives; ii) information about all the training activities financed by the local employment agency to craft firms. In November 2024, a baseline survey (CAWI) was conducted on the population of craft firms in the Trento province to obtain information about the attitudes and propensity towards training in general (i.e., not specifically financed by the local employment agency). This baseline survey was administered to all craft firms in the province, achieving a 21% response rate. Aside from socio-demographic characteristics, the survey also collected detailed information on all training activities carried out (including those not funded by the Employment Agency), as well as on the type of training, funding sources, decision-making processes, and future investment plans in training. Similarly, a follow-up survey is planned to be conducted after the implementation of the intervention and before the end of June 2026, which marks the end of the training "season” for the current year (firms can sign up for training financed by the local employment agency roughly from September to June of a given year). The survey is meant to complement the main analysis on administrative data and allow for exploratory analysis of secondary outcomes, as detailed below. For this reason, sample stratification also includes a stratum for baseline survey respondents.
|