Regional disparities in the effect of training on employment

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates one particular aspect of human capital formation: the relative effectiveness of training, as reflected in its effect on the probability of securing continued employment during the recent financial crisis. It uses a panel of 3983 individuals for the period 2008–11 and focuses on how the effects of training differ between the South and the North of Italy and across workers with different levels of education. The most striking result is that the effect of training on continued employment is notably stronger in the South than in the North of the country.

KEYWORDS:

• training in employment
• South and North of Italy
• education
• economic crisis

JEL:

• J2
• R1
• R23

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

For their helpful comments and suggestions, the authors thank three anonymous referees and the participants at: the University–Industry Linkages: From Theory to Policy Workshop, University of Rome Tre, Italy, 26–28 May 2014; the 2014 European Forum for Studies of Policies for Research and Innovation (Eu-SPRI) Conference, Manchester Institute of Innovation Research, UK, 18–20 June 2014; the Scientific Labour Markets and Innovation Systems Workshop, Birkbeck Centre for Innovation Management Research (CIMR), Birkbeck University of London, UK, 4 July 2014; the European Regional Science Association (ERSA) 54th Congress, St Petersburg, Russia, 26–29 August 2014; the Work-in-Progress Seminar, Department of Geography & Environment, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), UK, 20 May 2015; and the Italian Association of Regional Science (AISRe), Cagliari, 20–22 September 2017. The authors are also grateful to Ron Smith for econometric advice, though any errors, of course, remain the authors’ own.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Simona Iammarino http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9450-1700

Notes

1. In Italy, full-time workers forced into involuntary part-time work following the financial crisis in 2008 have steadily increased over time (e.g., Associazione Bruno Trentin – CGIL, 2015). This is the reason behind the choice to treat the transition full-time to part-time as an adverse outcome. However, to check the robustness of the estimates, we dropped the transitions to part-time altogether, and the results were qualitatively unchanged.

2. ALMP expenditure includes apprenticeship, work-entry contract, incentives for taking on long-term unemployed and for hiring those registered in mobility lists, temporary contracts, and the conversion of temporary contracts into permanent ones.

Additional information

Funding

Andrea Filippetti gratefully acknowledges the Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship project FP7-PEOPLE-2011-IEF-298167-REGIO_SPIN [grant number PIEF-GA-2011-298167].