La inserción laboral de los graduados (promociones 2013-2017) del Programa de Cooperación Educativa Universidad-Empresa de la UAB: Comparativa con las universidades catalanas

During the academic year 1989/1990, the Faculty of Economics and Business of the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) launched the University and Business Programme (PUE) with the aim of facilitating the labour market integration of its graduates. Throughout more than thirty years of operation, the results of labour market insertion of graduates in Business Administration and Management and Economics who studied the PUE Mention have been periodically analysed.

In order to assess whether the programme has achieved its objectives, it is not enough to analyse exclusively the labour market insertion process of the students who took part in it. For this reason, when studying the period 2013-2017, it was decided to compare the results of two homogeneous groups: those who took the programme (treated group) and those who did not (control group).

In this analysis, random samples of both groups are not available. However, using a regression model that allows controls to be established, the comparison is made between the students of the Faculty of Economics and Business of the UAB who participated in the PUE and those who did not. In addition, to increase the sample size and ensure more robust results, Economics and Business students from other Catalan universities are included as part of the control group.

The results obtained indicate that the PUE has contributed positively to the labour market insertion of graduates. Beyond this finding, the main value of this work lies in the proposal of a standard methodology for evaluating interventions of this type. This methodology is particularly relevant when seeking to analyse programmes that involve costs in terms of resources, but which also generate benefits whose magnitude must be carefully assessed.