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Devolving Skills: The Case of the Apprenticeship Grant for Employers *
Author(s) -
Cavaglia Chiara,
McNally Sandra,
Overman Henry G.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
fiscal studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.63
H-Index - 40
eISSN - 1475-5890
pISSN - 0143-5671
DOI - 10.1111/1475-5890.12238
Subject(s) - apprenticeship , flexibility (engineering) , devolution (biology) , context (archaeology) , test (biology) , economics , incentive , public administration , business , political science , sociology , management , microeconomics , paleontology , philosophy , linguistics , anthropology , biology , human evolution
One rationale for devolution is that local decision makers may be well placed to adapt national policies to the local context. We test whether such adaptation helps meet programme objectives in the case of the Apprenticeship Grant for Employers. Originally a national programme, aimed at incentivising employers to take on apprentices, reforms a few years into operation gave some Local Authorities negotiated flexibilities in how the scheme operated. We consider the impact of the national scheme and then use a difference‐in‐differences approach to test whether flexibility led to an increase in the number of apprenticeship starts in devolved areas relative to control groups. We find that flexibility had zero effect. There is suggestive evidence that this is because flexibilities were negotiated on the wrong margins.