TY  - JOUR
AU  - Adhvaryu, Achyuta
AU  - Kala, Namrata
AU  - Nyshadham, Anant
TI  - The Skills to Pay the Bills: Returns to On-the-job Soft Skills Training
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 24313
PY  - 2018
Y2  - February 2018
DO  - 10.3386/w24313
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w24313
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w24313.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Achyuta Adhvaryu
Ross School of Business
University of Michigan
701 Tappan Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Tel: 734/615-2327
E-Mail: adhvaryu@umich.edu

Namrata Kala
MIT Sloan School of Management
100 Main Street, E62-517
Cambridge, MA 02142
Tel: 203/500-4675
E-Mail: kala@mit.edu

Anant Nyshadham
Stephen M. Ross School of Business
University of Michigan
701 Tappan Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1234
E-Mail: nyshadha@umich.edu
AB  - We evaluate the causal impacts of on-the-job soft skills training on the productivity, wages, and retention of female garment workers in India. The program increased women’s extraversion and communication, and spurred technical skill upgrading. Treated workers were 20 percent more productive than controls post-program. Wages rise very modestly with treatment (by 0.5 percent), with no differential turnover, suggesting that although soft skills raise workers’ marginal products, labor market frictions are large enough to create a substantial wedge between productivity and wages. Consistent with this, the net return to the firm was large: 258 percent eight months after program completion.
ER  -