at midline (Premand et al., 2016). Table 1 in the annex presents the average baseline characteristics of the treatment and control groups, as well as differences between the two for the sample of individuals effectively surveyed at endline, i.e. excluding attritors in the 2014 followup survey. Overall, results indicate that the two groups remain well-balanced, suggesting that attrition did not affect the internal validity of the randomized design. There are few systematic differences between participants and non-participants and the differences are quantitatively small. The empirical analysis will control for the few characteristics in Table 1 that are found to be statistically different between the two groups at baseline.

The study relies on randomization among applicants to the entrepreneurship track. As such, results may not be generalizable to the entire population of university students. Employment outcomes in the control group at midline in 2011 can be compared to employment outcomes among young and recent university graduates of similar ages (22-24 years old) in the 2012 nationally representative labor force survey.<sup>8</sup> Compared to program applicants, the overall population of young graduates exhibit slightly higher unemployment and inactivity rate and a lower employment rate. The overall population of graduates is also slightly more concentrated in wage jobs, and less likely to be in self-employment. This suggests that applicants to the entrepreneurship track have stronger predisposition to self-employment than the national population, consistent with positive self-selection into the entrepreneurship track.

In considering the external validity of the results, it is also important to underline that although the entrepreneurship track took place before the Tunisian revolution, the follow-up surveys took place after it. The Arab Spring instilled a sense of optimism and hope for many young people, but perceptions of economic opportunities did not seem to last. Data from the control group in

> 8 The comparison is only indicative as the employment indicators are measured slightly differently. Still, approximately 70 percent of graduates in the control group were unemployed or inactive (63 percent of males and 74 percent of females), with approximately 28 percent employed (37 percent of males and 27 percent of females). There is a slightly higher unemployment and inactivity rate (73 percent) and a lower employment rate (26 percent) in the overall population of young graduates in 2012. This is consistent with previous graduate tracer studies showing that graduates’ labor-market insertion takes significant time. Another way to illustrate this is that, whereas 28 percent of the control group was employed in 2011, 49 percent was employed in 2014 at the time of the endline survey. Similarly, unemployment declined by 10 percentage points from 48 percent in 2011 to 37 percent in 2014. Looking at the composition of employment, the national population is slightly more concentrated in wage jobs compared to the control group, with 90 percent (83 percent of males and 96 percent of females) compared to 76 percent (68 percent of males and 83 percent of females) of employed individuals. In contrast, the national population is slightly less concentrated in self-employment: 5 percent (8 percent of males and 2 percent of females) compared to 16 percent (24 percent of males and 10 percent of females) among the control group in 2011.

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