This article suggests the limited success in meeting goals of the Youth Employment and Demonstration Projects Act is due to a misunderstanding of the phrase "knowledge development." The differences between the public and private sector's ability to improve work attitudes, skills, and youths' chances to find unsubsidized jobs are…

Participants in Comprehensive Employment and Training Act-sponsored classroom training, on the job-training, and subsidized work experience were compared to a Current Population Survey sample. Female participants in all types of training had increased earnings (primarily due to increased employment), while males did not. (GDC)

The problem of measuring impacts of employment and training programs when workers not receiving services are affected by the program is explored, using a reemployment bonus program as an example. The conventional measures of bonus impacts may significantly overestimate the net impact of the bonus offer. (SLD)

Net impact estimates of Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) programs vary widely and can be explained by the different evaluation methodologies used. Estimates are sensitive to the inclusion of recently unemployed persons in the comparison sample and assumptions about the time of decision to enroll in CETA. (GDC)

The cost effectiveness of the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act was evaluated in terms of moving economically disadvantaged individuals toward financial independence. Data analysis indicated small savings in welfare payments for female recipients, but not males. Data deficiencies in the Continuous Longitudinal Manpower Survey were also…

Estimates are presented for net earnings impact of the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act programs. Net impact was linked to the human capital model and estimated for numerous subgroups. The matching procedure and the use of quasiexperimental versus experimental design are also discussed. (Author/GDC)

Recent evaluations of manpower training claim that: (1) nonexperimental methods produce unreliable estimates of program impacts and (2) randomized experiments are necessary for reliability. National Supported Work Demonstration data are used to reexamine nonexperimental estimates of net program impact on posttraining earnings of high school…

Two studies used experimental data to evaluate nonexperimental methods of program evaluation for employment and training programs. Results of both studies indicated that the nonexperimental methods might not accurately replicate the experimental estimates. Also, new methods for constructing comparison groups yielded little improvement over…

Estimates of the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act's net impact on participant earnings, using Continuous Longitudinal Manpower Survey data, were compared to a similar sample from the Current Population Survey. The use of multivariate matching and weighting yielded acceptable results. (GDC)