The Benefits of Early Work Experience for School Dropouts: Evidence From a Field Experiment

We are grateful to Philippe Zamora, C\u00E9cile Ballini, Mathilde Gaini, and Marine Guillerm for helpful guidance during the experiment. We are indebted to Marie-Camille Alban, Elika Athari, Sarah Cohen, Karim El Charkawy, Demba Konate, Hugo Lapeyronie, Salom\u00E9 Leblanc, Komivi Seshie, and Loic Valck, for excellent research assistance. We thank Pierre Cahuc, Guillaume Chapelle, Olivier Charlot, and \u00C9lia P\u00E9renn\u00E8s for judicious comments. We also thank two anonymous referees for their comments and feedback that helped improve this work. A first version of this preprint was previously circulating as \u201CIs There a Second Chance for High-School Dropouts? Evidence from a Large-Scale Correspondence Study\u201D, DARES Document d'\u00C9tudes No. 243, C. Ballini, J. Hervelin, M. Gaini, 2020. The experiment has been conducted under the patronage of the S\u00E9curisation des parcours professionnels chair (http://www.chaire-securisation.fr), the partners of which are the Ministry of Labor, P\u00F4le emploi (Public employment service), Un\u00E9dic (Public unemployment insurance), Alpha group (Consultancy firms specialized in labor relations), Sciences Po and CREST-ENSAE. The steering committee of the chair, composed of representatives of these institutions, approved the related experiment without imposing any constraint on the design proposed by the authors. It has been administratively supported by the Institut Louis Bachelier.