Both in the USA and in Austria, qualification measures within the framework of active labour market policy are under increasing political pressure to justify themselves. In most cases, the crucial question is the effectiveness of the financial resources made available for this purpose. In addition to high-quality data, an empirically sound clarification of this question requires above all developed econometric methods: only comparative methods can identify whether training courses actually have an effect. The simple evaluation of results after the end of training (e.g. placement rates) is not sufficient and can lead to wrong conclusions.
The expert dialogue organised by WIFO, the School of Public Policy of the University of Maryland, the Upjohn Institute for Employment Research and the Austrian Embassy served to exchange experiences between scientists and practitioners. From the American side, prominent labour economists as well as representatives of the Congress in charge of funding programmes took part in the dialogue, which took place at the Austrian Embassy in Washington. For example, Randall Eberts (President of the Upjohn Institute), Burt Barnow (Professor at George Washington University) and Jeffrey Smith (Professor at the University of Wisconsin) reported on research projects on the evaluation of American labour market programmes. On the Austrian side, WIFO labour market expert Helmut Mahringer presented impact analyses and new evaluation methods applied at WIFO, WIFO director Christoph Badelt highlighted the labour market policy background, and Johannes Kopf (director of the Austrian Public Employment Service, AMS) presented the monitoring and benchmarking systems of the AMS. Georg Fischer (consultant at the Bertelsmann Foundation and former European Commission) described the relevant procedures to be applied in the evaluation of programmes of the European Social Fund (ESF). Roland Sauer, Head of Section at the Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs, Health and Consumer Protection, gave a perspective on the qualification requirements of the future.
The dialogue served as a start for further cooperation between WIFO and the University of Maryland (Prof. Doug Besharov) in the field of labour market research, in particular on issues of evaluation and performance measurement.
