Literature analysis of the evaluation of public training programmes in the USA, Europe and China: Implications for the evaluation of farmer training programmes in China

• Author: John Burgess,Mei Wang,Yacheng Xiao
• Published date: 01 February 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0106.12280
• Date: 01 February 2019

ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT

Literature analysis of the evaluation of public

training programmes in the USA, Europe

and China: Implications for the evaluation

of farmer training programmes in China

Mei Wang

1

| John Burgess

2

| Yacheng Xiao

1

1

College of Economics and Management,

Southwest University, Chongqing, China

2

School of Management, RMIT University,

Melbourne, Australia

Correspondence

John Burgess, School of Management, RMIT

University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

Email: john.burgess@rmit.edu.au

Funding information

Southwest University Fundamental Research

Funds for the Central Universities., Grant/Award

Number: SWU1509491 Talents Training Program

for Western China 2015085

Abstract

This review aims to inform the evaluation of Chinese

farmer training programmes through comparison with stud-

ies assessing public training programmes in the USA and

Europe. The results of comparative analysis from 62 studies

in the USA, Europe and Mainland China suggest that eval-

uation studies of the farmer training programme should

measure the effectiveness of farmer training on agricultural

income. Considering the cost and availability of data,

cross-section estimation may be an effective way to evalu-

ate the effectiveness of farmer training programmes in

China, but on the basis of controlling the initial demo-

graphic characteristics of samples. In particular, political

status (whether a party member of Communist Party of

China or not), position (whether village cadre or not) and

region of residence are considered to be important determi-

nants that impact the effectiveness of farmer training pro-

grammes in China. This review sets out directions for the

future study of Chinese training programmes, with particu-

lar emphasis given to the need for research into the causal

effects of different training courses, the dynamic effects

arising from variation in the duration of training, and the

medium-run or long-run effects of training programmes.

1|INTRODUCTION

Through training programmes, national governments aim to increase participants’human capital and,

in turn, increase participants’earnings and productivity, reduce unemployment rates and anti-social

behaviour, and improve participant well-being. A bold estimate by Mincer and Higuchi (1988) sug-

gests that the total investment in training may be almost as large as the investment in education.

Received: 19 December 2016 Revised: 30 April 2018 Accepted: 28 June 2018

DOI: 10.1111/1468-0106.12280

Pac Econ Rev. 2019;24:69–91. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/paer © 2018 John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd 69

Public spending on active labour market programmes is 0.8% of GDP in Germany and amounts to

more than 1% of GDP in Sweden (OECD, 2013). Due to the large cost of starting, maintaining and

operating these programmes, it is necessary to examine whether these programmes do what they are

supposed to do. How effective are the public training programmes? An important starting question is:

How should public training programmes be evaluated?”Effectively estimating the effects of public

training programmes is of great importance for the effective use of public funds and adjustments in

policy decision-making.

The focus of this article is public (not private) training programmes, and not education or changes

to human capital. Several published studies evaluate public training programmes in the USA and

Europe. For example, the U.S. Department of Labour has implemented Job Corps, a no-cost educa-

tion and vocational training programme, for young people since 1964. From the mid to the late

1990s, the National Job Corps Study used a randomized social experiment to evaluate the effective-

ness of this programme. The evaluation measures Job Corps’impact on participants’outcomes across

various dimensions, including earnings, employment and criminal behaviour, to assess whether the

value of the training programme’s benefits exceed its costs. Subsequently, several scholars evaluated

the training effects with adjustments for heterogeneity of treatment. For example, some evaluators

estimated the causal impact of different lengths of exposure to the training programme on earnings

(Flores, Flores-Lagunes, Gonzalez, & Neumann, 2012), others evaluated the short-run, medium-run

and long-run effects of the training programme on earnings and employment (Schochet, Burghardt, &

McConnell, 2008, Frumento, Mealli, Pacini, & Rubin, 2012), or the heterogeneous effects across dif-

ferent groups by the average initial demographic characteristics (Blanco, Flores, & Flores-Lagunes,

2013; Jacobson, LaLonde, & Sullivan, 2005; Schochet, Burghardt, & Glazerman, 2001). In this

review we draw heavily on Job Corp evaluations because it is the largest and one of the longest run-

ning public training programmes in the USA, and, as a result, has been subject to extensive analysis

and evaluation.

Similar studies of public training programmes have been conducted in Europe. In the 1990s,

many European countries designed and implemented training programmes as subprogrammes of

active labour market policy. Similarly, European empirical studies evaluated the effectiveness of

training programmes in the short term and the long term (Fitzenberger & Speckesser, 2008; Hujer,

Thomsen, & Zeiss, 2006; Jespersen, Munch, & Skipper, 2008; Larsson, 2003; Lechner, Miquel, &

Wunsch, 2007; Lechner, Miquel, & Wunsch, 2011; Sianesi, 2004), and the heterogeneous effects

across different demographic groups (Fitzenberger & Speckesser, 2008; Gerfin & Lechner, 2002;

Raaum & Torp, 2002; Regnér, 2002; Speckesser, 2004). In addition, some studies found that differ-

ent training courses have different training effects (Fitzenberger & Völter, 2007; Gerfin & Lechner,

2002; Jespersen et al., 2008; Larsson, 2003).

In China, free vocational farming training programmes are administered by the Ministry of Agri-

culture; these programmes help farmers or those who are willing to work in agriculture to master pro-

duction skills, and to improve management and operation capabilities for modern agriculture through

vocational training. The history of these farmer training programmes can be traced back 30 years.

From 2004 to 2017, China’s No.1 Central Documents (refers to the first major policy document of

each year released by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council)

mention farmer training. In 2012, the document called for developing a new type of professional

farmer and an increased funding commitment. In 2016 the central government invested RMB1.39 bil-

lion to train 1 million professional farmers. In 2017 the government was expected to invest

RMB1.5 billion in farmer training. With the increasing expenditure on public farmer training, policy-

makers are aware of the importance of evaluating farmer training programmes.

70 M. WANG ET AL.