Econ Papers Daily / 期刊论文
高效稳定器还是负担效应？经济衰退期间学徒培训补贴的影响
Efficient stabilizer or deadweight effect? The impact of subsidies for apprenticeship training during an economic downturn
摘要
Economic downturns often come along with a reduction of apprenticeship training by firms, hereby threatening economies with a lack of skilled labour in the mid- and long-run. Against this background, the German government has implemented an apprenticeship subsidy for small and medium sized companies in the summer of 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. In brief, companies that maintained their number of new apprenticeships at the average level of the past three years could receive €2000 for each apprenticeship starting in the autumn of 2020. We exploit eligibility for the subsidy due to firm size and compare eligible and non-eligible firms in an intent-to-treat difference-in-differences (DiD) design. The estimates show no impact on the number of new apprenticeships but a moderate effect on the probability to maintain the training level at the level of the past three years. This suggests that firms that were at the margin of maintaining the level without the subsidy have hired a small number of additional apprentices to receive the subsidy. This mirrors the incentive structure of the subsidy, as firms at the margin have received a large amount of money for a small number of additional apprenticeships. These results are robust to a wide range of sensitivity and robustness checks, including linear and non-linear DiD estimation, tests for diverging trends, placebo tests with placebo outcomes as well as checks for panel attrition. These results add to the scarce literature on the impact of training subsidies in general and their impact during economic crises in particular.
中文摘要
经济衰退往往伴随着企业学徒培训的减少，从而在中长期内使经济体面临熟练劳动力短缺的威胁。在此背景下，德国政府在2020年夏季新冠疫情期间针对中小企业实施了学徒补贴政策。简言之，那些将新学徒数量维持在过去三年平均水平的公司，可为2020年秋季开始的每份学徒岗位获得2000欧元补贴。我们利用企业规模所决定的补贴资格，在意向性治疗（intent-to-treat）的双重差分（DiD）设计中对符合条件与不符合条件的企业进行比较。估计结果显示，补贴对新学徒数量没有影响，但对将培训水平维持在过去三年水平上的概率具有中等程度的影响。这表明，那些在没有补贴时处于维持该水平边缘的企业，额外雇佣了少量学徒以获得补贴。这反映了该补贴的激励结构，因为处于边缘的企业为少量额外学徒获得了大量资金。这些结果在广泛的敏感性和稳健性检验下均保持稳健，包括线性与非线性DiD估计、趋势发散检验、以安慰剂结果为对象的安慰剂检验以及面板 attrition 检验。这些结果补充了关于培训补贴总体影响、尤其是其在经济危机期间影响的稀缺文献。