Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP15333
Authors: Clare Leaver; Owen Ozier; Pieter Serneels; Andrew Zeitlin
Abstract: This paper reports on a two-tiered experiment designed to separately identify the selection and effort margins of pay-for-performance (P4P). At the recruitment stage, teacher labor markets were randomly assigned to a pay-for-percentile or fixed-wage contract. Once recruits were placed, an unexpected, incentive-compatible, school-level re-randomization was performed, so that some teachers who applied for a fixed-wage contract ended up being paid by P4P, and vice versa. By the second year of the study, the within-year effort effect of P4P was 0.16 standard deviations of pupil learning, with the total effect rising to 0.20 standard deviations after allowing for selection.
Keywords: pay-for-performance; selection; incentives; teachers; field experiment
JEL Codes: C93; I21; J45; M52; O15
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| advertised P4P contracts (L14) | distribution of measured teacher skills among applicants (C52) |
| teachers recruited under P4P (J45) | lower intrinsic motivation (C92) |
| lower intrinsic motivation (C92) | teachers under P4P contracts were at least as effective in promoting learning as their FW counterparts (J45) |
| teachers under P4P contracts (J45) | better student performance (D29) |
| P4P (Z28) | higher attrition rates among teachers (I21) |