Download - Youth Economic Opportunities

offer), but did not affect their reservation wage for public sector jobs. This is interesting giventhe evidence that the earnings and security provided by public sector jobs are highly valued byyouth, a factor that contributes to high unemployment and inactivity rates in Tunisia (WorldBank, 2012b). This finding is also consistent with the program leading to greater valuation ofself-employment or entrepreneurial activities in general. It also suggests that self-employment isa substitute for private sector jobs but not with public sector jobs. 226. Channels of impactThe previous section documents that the program increased self-employment among participants,and suggests a substitution from wage employment to self-employment. This section attempts totease out the channels through which the program affected employment outcomes. This is doneby presenting impacts on intermediary outcomes such as: (i) business skills; (ii) networks; (iii)preference and behavioral skills; (iv) attitudes towards the future; and (iv) access to credit.Tables 5, 6 and 7 display results for these channels across the same specifications as in Table 4.6.1 Business skillsTable 5 (Panel A) presents evidence that the intervention produced strong impacts onparticipants’ self-reported business skills. A major objective of the entrepreneurship track was toequip students with technical knowledge on how to produce a business plan and practicalexperience in developing a project.Results show that beneficiaries report having more practical experience in realizing projects –the average ITT was a 10 percentage point increase in practical experience, a 27 percent increaseover the control group. Program graduates also have significantly better knowledge about topicstaught in the entrepreneurship track, including in being able to list the components of a businessplan (for instance a supply assessment or a marketing plan). For example, 77 percent of programgraduates reported knowing how to produce a business plan, compared to 45 percent in thecontrol group. These impacts are closely related to the core content of the business trainingoffered by the national employment office and as such were expected. They do suggest that not22 Consistent with a higher reservation wage for private sector jobs, individuals in the treatment group are morelikely to reject a job offer because the salary is too low.20