Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/208183 
Year of Publication: 
2019
Series/Report no.: 
IDB Working Paper Series No. IDB-WP-1015
Publisher: 
Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Washington, DC
Abstract: 
Understanding the causal association between skills and productivity is essential for designing effective training programs. This paper evaluates an intervention aimed at boosting leadership and communication skills among store managers and sales associates from a large Latin American retailer. The empirical analysis is carried out using longitudinal information gathered by the firm and through two skills surveys. The Identification exploits the experimental design in the context of a difference-in-difference strategy. The results indicate large positive effects of the training program on store-level productivity. We further link these Findings to individual-level performance measures. In particular, we document positive effects on total sales and numbers of transactions for all workers. Regarding the mechanisms, we provide evidence suggesting that the intervention was more effective in boosting leadership skills than communication skills. Spillovers from trained managers to untrained sales representatives also contribute to the main effects. Our findings point towards the possibility of increasing productivity through training programs targeting critical skills.
Subjects: 
Socio-emotional skills
training
productivity
experiments with firms
JEL: 
C93
J24
M53
O15
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by-nc-nd Logo
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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