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Despite the widely recognised importance of lifelong learning, there are mixed results on its causal economic impact. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how economic conditions change the composition of participants in non-formal lifelong learning and whether the business cycle is relevant for the impact of non-formal lifelong learning on employability.

Non-linear decomposition techniques and matching estimators based on multidimensional covariates are applied to the Spanish sample of the European Adult Education Survey. The analysis controls for background, human capital and personal traits and draws a distinction between unemployed and employed workers.

The results show major differences in the volume and composition of participants before and during the Great Recession. In addition, there is a business cycle dependence of the effectiveness of non-formal lifelong learning that varies with the individual labour market situation. While lifelong learning proves more effective for the unemployed in recessions, for the employed the impact is greater in expansions.

The paper provides new evidence on the scant results of the moderating effect of the business cycle on the impact of lifelong learning. The analysis is not restricted to training implemented within public programmes, but rather extends to any kind of non-formal lifelong learning undertaken by unemployed and employed workers. In this sense, the analysis provides information about the optimal moment to invest in lifelong learning from both the policymaker and individual as well as firm perspective.

The purpose of this paper seeks to gauge the impact of the Red de Oportunidades programme on the school attendance of children from households that participate in the programme.

In order to measure the impact of the programme, the authors apply propensity score matching, a quasi-experimental technique that allows us to find an appropriate control group to compare with the treatment group.

Results show that the programme does not always manage to bring into line school attendance of children from families involved in the programme with that of children from families who are not. Nevertheless, differences are still evident in terms of age, gender and geographical area.

Conditional cash transfer programmes should be designed carefully, taking into account a great variety of factors such as geographical characteristics, educational resources and infrastructure, not only to replicate programmes that have proved to be effective in other countries. In this sense, it seems that the impact of cash transfers on primary school attendance can be wholly attributed to the programme, implying that it is better to allocate more resources to groups in terms of age and gender where education is still not universal.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first time the impact of conditional cash transfers on school attendance has been examined in a country that still displays major geographical differences in terms of poverty, namely, Panama. The Red de Oportunidades programme has barely been studied.