Empirical Evidence on the Effectiveness of Social Public Procurement Policy: The Case of the Swiss Apprenticeship Training System

36 Pages Posted: 14 Jan 2015

See all articles by Mirjam Strupler

Mirjam Strupler

University of Bern

Stefan C. Wolter

Swiss Coordination Centre for Research in Education (SKBF); University of Bern - Department of Economics

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: December 29, 2014

Abstract

This paper assesses the effectiveness of a social public procurement policy in Switzerland that gives firms that train apprentices’ a preferential treatment. We estimate the effectiveness of this social procurement policy on a firm’s training participation, training intensity, and training quality using information from a representative and large firm survey. The results show that although the policy increases the number of training firms, the effect is limited in size, as only small firms and firms operating in sectors where public procurement represents a large share of the business, are affected positively. As a robustness check we further exploit a natural variation in the incidence of public procurement policies across Cantons and apply a difference-indifferences strategy. The results from this robustness check lie within the range of the effect estimated exploiting the cross-sectional data. Furthermore, we find no evidence that firms offering training due of public procurement policies provide training of a below-average quality.

Keywords: apprenticeship training, difference-in-differences, matching, public procurement policy, social public procurement

JEL Classification: H32, I28, J08

Suggested Citation

Strupler, Mirjam and Wolter, Stefan C., Empirical Evidence on the Effectiveness of Social Public Procurement Policy: The Case of the Swiss Apprenticeship Training System (December 29, 2014). CESifo Working Paper Series No. 5119, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2548994 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2548994

Mirjam Strupler

University of Bern ( email )

Gesellschaftsstrasse 49
Bern, BERN 3001
Switzerland

Stefan C. Wolter (Contact Author)

Swiss Coordination Centre for Research in Education (SKBF) ( email )

CH - 5000 Aarau
Switzerland
+41 62 835 23 90 (Phone)
+41 62 835 23 99 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://www.skbf-csre.ch

University of Bern - Department of Economics ( email )

Gesellschaftstrasse 49
Bern, CH-3012
Switzerland
+41 31 631 40 95 (Phone)
+41 31 631 39 92 (Fax)

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