The purpose of our study is to test whether the E U assistance on trainings helped to increase sales in private firms through their competitiven ess and to improve the effectiveness of the policy implementation for the 2014 – 2020 programming period in the Czech Republic. The paper is based on conducting a counterfactual impact evaluation of the Operational Human Resources and Employment Operationa l Programme , support area 1.1 in the Czech Republic. This support area finances private companies in the field of training and improvements in the systems of human resource development. Our study has a quasi - experimental design, as the programme assistance has not been desig ned as a randomized experiment. We analysed a data sample of 31 604 firms, of which 2630 were applicants for the ESF assistance. We applied the propensity score matching (PSM) method, the regression disconti nuity design (RDD) method and t he instrumental variable (IV) method to estimate the impact. The estimated impact of the ESF on sales varies according applied methods and a size of firms. The PSM method indicate s a positive impact of ESF on sales for all size groups of firms . On the othe r hand the IV method indicates a negative impact . There was no significant estimate for the RDD method.
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