To ensure that the evaluation captures the impact of the program rather than the impact of the characteristics that differ across the groups resulting from attrition, the balance tests were reestimated across the treatment groups and the control group without the attritors (Appendix C, table C3). The groups remain similar, on average. There were no differential patterns among the nonattritors in the treatment and control groups or among the key variables tested, and the only variable with a statistically significant difference in means also differed at baseline (self‐reported ability to read or write a simple text).

Although no worrying trends were observed, a set of standard individual characteristics are included as control variables in all the econometric estimations. As an additional robustness check, an inverse probability weighting approach was used to conduct attrition corrections (Wooldridge 2000). This was done by estimating a probit model to predict the probability of staying in the panel and to calculate inverse probability weights, which are used to reweight the sample, giving more weight to individuals with the highest chance of attrition. More details on the methodology and results, following Adoho et al. (2014), are presented in Appendix C, along with the main unadjusted ITT results for comparison. The results show a high degree of similarity between the original (unadjusted) and the adjusted estimates. Across all outcomes, the point estimates and standard errors vary only slightly and do not change the overall results.

# b. Compliance and take‐up

There are potential compliance and take‐up issues at two stages of the program: (i) participation in the random assignment (selection) by shortlisted applicants and (ii) compliance with the random assignment, or program take‐up for those assigned to one of the treatment groups. Take‐up of the random assignment was 86 percent (a total of 3,854 applicants were shortlisted to participate in the random assignment by public lottery, but only 3,319 actually attended). This discrepancy may have been partly caused by the 3.5 month lag between application and selection. The take‐up at this stage did not affect the internal validity of the study because the random assignment was carried out only among those who attended the lottery. However, there are external validity considerations. For example, if those who did not attend the lottery had better networks and were therefore able to find alternative training or work opportunities, the impacts would be underestimated.

Take‐up was also high for a program of this type. Survey and administrative data indicate that around 10.0 percent of those assigned to one of the treatment groups did not take up the training, and, at most, 6.1 percent of the control individuals participated in the training sessions. To ensure robustness, estimates of the local average treatment effect were also produced to examine the impact of the treatment on the treated: those individuals whose treatment status was influenced by the random assignment, that is, the compliers (Angrist and Imbens 1995; Angrist, Imbens, and Rubin 1996). The original assignment is used as an instrumental variable for treatment, where treatment is defined as a binary variable that takes on a value of 1 if the individual attended at least 75 percent of the training and 0 otherwise. As expected based on the low levels of noncompliance with the random assignment, the results are similar to the ITT estimates. Given this outcome and the large amount of data already presented, only the ITT estimates are presented here.

Various program design features may explain the high overall take‐up, the low drop‐out rates, and the differential take‐up across treatment groups among youth who were part of the random assignment. First, the program required applicants to prepare a short business proposal, which may have acted as a signal of commitment to the program (Blattman, Fiala, and Martinez 2014). Second, individuals assigned to the treatment who attended less frequently were contacted by phone by HELP‐SL to encourage participation.

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