Project: Helping The World Bank Measure Job Impacts Through Rigorous Assessment Tools​

The World Bank and the World Bank Jobs Group are often interested in obtaining estimates of the impacts that interventions (skills training, employment services, subsidized employment) have on jobs. An important aspect of these impacts is indirect jobs outcomes  –  those arising along the supply chain connected to directly affected sectors and geographical areas and those stemming from resulting changes in spending patterns. While there exists a wide range of available methodologies for quantifying the overall employment impacts of interventions, it is not always clear which method is best suited to each particular context and intervention.

In response to this challenge, the World Bank engaged Limestone Analytics to develop a decision-support framework which the World Bank and others might use to select the optimal methodology to estimate the impacts of jobs due to any particular intervention. 

Limestone developed a standardized and transparent decision-making procedure for choosing appropriate approaches and techniques for evaluating the labor market impacts of an intervention. The decision-making procedure consists of three steps: describing the context, specifying a jobs-focused theory of change (JToC), and selecting and implementing techniques for quantifying job impacts. The procedure was developed by drawing on lessons from several pilot studies undertaken and financed by the World Bank as part of a policy commitment made in connection with its IDA19 replenishment. The report demonstrates the utility of the decision-making procedure by implementing it for several of the pilot studies.