The Impact of Technical and Vocational Training on Youth Employment in Senegal
With Tenikue, M.
One of the most important determinants of unemployment and poverty is arguably lack of skills. In response, policymakers often provide vocational training programs to improve skills among youth. Using data from the Enquête National sur l'Emploi au Sénégal (ENES), we examine the impact of technical and vocational training (TVET) on youth and female employment at a district level in Senegal from 2018 to 2023. To overcome the potential endogeneity between these two variables, we use an instrumental variable approach and instrument an individual's participation in TVET by their exposure to a training offer. We measure this by looking at the distance to the nearest TVET facility at their disposal. Our results suggest that TVET, overall, does improve employment outcomes for youth. In particular, TVET seems to significantly increase access to formal employment, both for young men and women. Interestingly, TVET seems to increase significantly employment for women but not for men. From the perspective of development policies, our results shed light on the importance of delivering such training programs and, more importantly, raising awareness about their contribution to employment and improving their access to young females.
The Impact of Foreign Media on Political Mobilization during the Arab Spring
With Angelini, L., Bertinelli, L., & Maystadt, J-F.
R&R in World Development
We investigate how foreign media networks influenced political mobilization during the Arab Spring in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. We examine two prominent media networks in the Arab world, Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, and use data from Arab Barometer
surveys to track political mobilization indicators and media networks for Jordan, Lebanon, and Palestine. To account for potential endogeneity, we use the frequency of lightning strikes and submarine cable seaquake shocks as instrumental variables, highlighting the non-random use of foreign media. The results indicate that foreign media has a positive and significant impact on political mobilization. Specifically, a one-standard-deviation increase in access to foreign media corresponds to an approximately 4 percentage point increase in the probability of participating in protests. At the mean of protests, this translates into a rise of about 25%. We discuss how Internet access and the informational aspect of the media seem to explain the results. Furthermore, our findings suggest that the driving force behind mobilization is mainly rooted in the informational aspect of the media rather than the ideological content of the news.
Individual Attitudes towards Immigration in Aging Populations
With Irmen, A. & Litina, A.
CESifo Working Paper Series
This paper empirically uncovers the role of population aging as a novel determinant of societal attitudes towards immigration. In particular we document that aging has a U-shaped effect on immigrant-related attitudes. This implies that whereas relatively "young" societies are not favorable towards immigrants, nevertheless as societies "grow older" they tend to adopt more favorable attitudes towards immigrants. To test our hypothesis we conduct a multilevel analysis using a sample of individuals who reside in 25 European OECD countries over the period 2002-2019. We proxy for "societal population aging" using a measure of country-level old-age dependency ratio and we test its effect on various attitudes towards immigrants as derived from nine consecutive rounds of the European Social Survey. Our hypothesized mechanism accounting for this U-shaped effect builds on the acknowledgment that as societies grow older, the shrinking working population and the associated problems, render the labor force participation of immigrants a lucrative option. Ultimately, the economic incentives to raise the inflow of immigrants trigger an indirect shift in immigrant-related attitudes. To address potential endogeneity concerns, we use an instrumental variable approach using as an instrument the projected old-age dependency ratio.