Yuri Soares

The Labor Market Impacts of Youth Training in the Dominican Republic

We report the impacts of a job training program operated in the Dominican Republic. A random sample of applicants was selected to undergo training, and information was gathered 10–14 months after graduation. Unfortunately, people originally assigned to treatment who failed to show up were not included in the follow-up survey, potentially compromising the evaluation design. We present estimates of the program effect, including comparisons that ignore the potential nonrandomness of “no-show” behavior, and estimates that model selectivity parametrically. We find little indication of a positive effect on employment outcomes but some evidence of a modest effect on earnings, conditional on working.

Urban upgrading in Rio de Janeiro: Evidence from the Favela-Bairro programme

This paper estimates average treatment effects and distributional and locational effects of the Favela-Bairro programme at the household level on direct outputs and on property values. Not surprisingly, households in treated neighbourhoods are better off in terms of the direct outputs delivered by the programme. However, in terms of property values, at the average level, the intervention was not translated on appreciation of housing values, suggesting that, without a land titling component, slum upgrading programmes do not have an effect on the value of dwellings. On the contrary, when estimating heterogeneous effects of the programme within treated neighbourhoods, the results suggest that appreciation of housing values is observed in properties with poor accessibility and low-value dwellings. These distributional and locational effects suggest that, although the average treatment effects on housing values are not significant, the programme was successful in decreasing inequality among slum dwellers, and reducing economic and spatial segregation within treated neighbourhoods.

Creating New Opportunities for Rural Producers: Impact Evaluation of a Pilot Program in Colombia

Abstract This paper presents the impact evaluation of a pilot program that treated 57 small organizations of agricultural producers with high risk of getting involved in illegal drug production in Colombia. The program supported producers mainly by facilitating the commercialization of their new licit alternative sources of income. We combine propensity score matching, regression discontinuity, and Bayesian decision theory, with unique and rich panel data to assess the economic impact of the program. Our results suggest that the program was successful on increasing total sales and improving the product’s quality for the treated producers. The intervention was more successful when combined with other programs that gave producers incentives to abandon illegal drug production definitely.

Can Arts-Based Interventions Enhance Labor Market Outcomes Among Youth?

This paper provides findings of a small-scale, innovative labor training program that uses expressive arts and theatre as a pedagogical tool. The corresponding life skills training component is combined with a technical component teaching vocational skills. To our knowledge, this is the first paper to rigorously evaluate the effectiveness of a training program constructed around expressive arts. Using a randomized assignment of favela youth into program and control groups, we look at the short-run treatment effects on a comprehensive set of outcomes including employment and earnings as well as measures of personality traits and risk behavior. We find positive short-run employment and earnings impacts five months after the program finalized; no impacts are found for shorter periods. These short-run impacts are economically very large, compared to those typically found in the literature: a 33.3 per cent increase in the probability of being employed, and a 23.6 per cent increase in earnings. We find no evidence of significant program impacts on other outcomes, including personality related traits, providing evidence that these traits may not be malleable for young adults in the short-run. We argue that the estimated labor market impacts are due to a combination of both skills formation and signaling of higher quality workers to employers.