Which program for whom? Evidence on the comparative effectiveness of public sponsored training programs in Germany

We use a new and exceptionally rich administrative data set for Germany to evaluate the employment effects of a variety of public sponsored training programs in the early 2000s. Building on the work of Sianesi (2003, 2004), we employ propensity score matching methods in a dynamic, multiple treatment framework in order to address program heterogeneity and dynamic selection into programs. Our results suggest that in West Germany both short-term and medium-term programs show considerable employment effects for certain population subgroups but in some cases the effects are zero in the medium run. Short-term programs are surprisingly effective when compared to the traditional and more expensive longer-term programs. With a few exceptions, we find little evidence for significant positive treatment effects in East Germany. There is some evidence that the employment effects decline for older workers and for low-skilled workers

Imputation Rules to Improve the Education Variable in the IAB Employment Subsample

The education variable in the IAB employment subsample has two shortcomings: missing values and inconsistencies with the reporting rule. We propose several deductive imputation procedures to improve the variable. They mainly use the multiple education information available in the data because the employees' education is reported at least once a year. We compare the improved data from the different procedures and the original data in typical applications in labor economics: educational composition of employment, wage inequality, and wage regression. We find, that correcting the education variable: (i) shows the educational attainment of the male labor force to be higher than measured with the original data, (ii) gives different values for some measures of wage inequality, and (iii) does not change the estimates in wage regressions much

Effects of fluoxetine on functional outcomes after acute stroke (FOCUS): a pragmatic, double-blind, randomised, controlled trial

Background Results of small trials indicate that fluoxetine might improve functional outcomes after stroke. The FOCUS trial aimed to provide a precise estimate of these effects. Methods FOCUS was a pragmatic, multicentre, parallel group, double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled trial done at 103 hospitals in the UK. Patients were eligible if they were aged 18 years or older, had a clinical stroke diagnosis, were enrolled and randomly assigned between 2 days and 15 days after onset, and had focal neurological deficits. Patients were randomly allocated fluoxetine 20 mg or matching placebo orally once daily for 6 months via a web-based system by use of a minimisation algorithm. The primary outcome was functional status, measured with the modified Rankin Scale (mRS), at 6 months. Patients, carers, health-care staff, and the trial team were masked to treatment allocation. Functional status was assessed at 6 months and 12 months after randomisation. Patients were analysed according to their treatment allocation. This trial is registered with the ISRCTN registry, number ISRCTN83290762. Findings Between Sept 10, 2012, and March 31, 2017, 3127 patients were recruited. 1564 patients were allocated fluoxetine and 1563 allocated placebo. mRS data at 6 months were available for 1553 (99·3%) patients in each treatment group. The distribution across mRS categories at 6 months was similar in the fluoxetine and placebo groups (common odds ratio adjusted for minimisation variables 0·951 [95% CI 0·839–1·079]; p=0·439). Patients allocated fluoxetine were less likely than those allocated placebo to develop new depression by 6 months (210 [13·43%] patients vs 269 [17·21%]; difference 3·78% [95% CI 1·26–6·30]; p=0·0033), but they had more bone fractures (45 [2·88%] vs 23 [1·47%]; difference 1·41% [95% CI 0·38–2·43]; p=0·0070). There were no significant differences in any other event at 6 or 12 months. Interpretation Fluoxetine 20 mg given daily for 6 months after acute stroke does not seem to improve functional outcomes. Although the treatment reduced the occurrence of depression, it increased the frequency of bone fractures. These results do not support the routine use of fluoxetine either for the prevention of post-stroke depression or to promote recovery of function. Funding UK Stroke Association and NIHR Health Technology Assessment Programme

Evaluating dynamically assigned training programs for the unemployed

Reducing unemployment is an important political task in many industrialized economies. In particular, the continental European countries experienced ever increasing unemployment rates during the 1980s and 1990s. Since the mid-1990s, there is an increased interest in identifying best practices in administering active and passive labor market policies, both at the national and the supranational level. This requires a scientific review of labor market policies. In Germany, appropriate data for a rigorous evaluation of active labor market programs were not available for a long time. Only starting with the reforms in the late 1990s, policymakers have recognized the importance of a scientific assessment of labor market policies. As a result, access to large and informative data, emerging from different administrative processes, has now become possible. Based on unique administrative data for Germany this dissertation applies new dynamic evaluation methods to investigate the effectiveness of different types of training programs for the unemployed. The dissertation is composed of five self-contained papers. The first paper deals with data quality issues in the education variable in one of the data sources used. It thus documents an important part of the research to prepare the new databases for the evaluation analyses in this dissertation. The evaluation studies examine the impact of different types of training programs during the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s. From an econometric point of view, they are concerned with the causal analysis of dynamically assigned treatments. The second paper evaluates the longrun employment effects of different longer-term training schemes in the 1980s and 1990s. The third paper compares the effects of short-term training in the 1980s to those in the early 2000s. The fourth paper analyzes the employment effects of short- to long-term training schemes in the early 2000s and compares their differential effectiveness. These three evaluation studies apply sequential matching techniques building on the work of Sianesi (2004). The last paper, in contrast, uses duration methods in the spirit of Abbring and van den Berg (2003) to evaluate the dynamic effects of short-term and long-term training programs in the early 2000s on duration outcomes

Feasibility of reporting results of large randomised controlled trials to participants:experience from the Fluoxetine or Control under supervision (FOCUS) trial

Objectives Informing research participants of the results of studies in which they took part is viewed as an ethical imperative. However, there is little guidance in the literature about how to do this. The Fluoxetine Or Control Under Supervision trial randomised 3127 patients with a recent acute stroke to 6 months of fluoxetine or placebo and was published in the Lancet on 5 December 2018. The trial team decided to inform the participants of the results at exactly the same time as the Lancet publication, and also whether they had been allocated fluoxetine or placebo. In this report, we describe how we informed participants of the results.Design In the 6-month and 12-month follow-up questionnaires, we invited participants to provide an email address if they wished to be informed of the results of the trial. We re-opened our trial telephone helpline between 5 December 2018 and 31 March 2019.Setting UK stroke services.Participants 3127 participants were randomised. 2847 returned 6-month follow-up forms and 2703 returned 12-month follow-up forms; the remaining participants had died (380), withdrawn consent or did not respond.Results Of those returning follow-up questionnaires, a total of 1845 email addresses were provided and a further 50 people requested results to be sent by post. Results were sent to all email and postal addresses provided; 309 emails were returned unrecognised. Seventeen people replied, of whom three called the helpline and the rest responded by email.Conclusion It is feasible to disseminate results of large trials to research participants, though only around 60% of those randomised wanted to receive the results. The system we developed was efficient and required very little resource, and could be replicated by trialists in the future.Trial registration number ISRCTN83290762; Post-results