Working Paper: NBER ID: w30758
Authors: Arya Gaduh; Menno Pradhan; Jan Priebe; Dewi Susanti
Abstract: Social accountability offers a viable alternative to top-down supervision of service delivery in remote areas when travel cost renders the latter ineffective. However, this bottom-up approach may not be effective when the community has weak authority relative to the service provider. This paper investigates whether giving communities authority over teacher performance pay improves the effectiveness of social accountability in Indonesia’s remote schools. We tested incentive contracts based on either camera-verified teacher presence or community ratings of teacher performance. Social accountability had the strongest and most persistent impact on student learning when combined with the former. The results indicate that when the principal (community) has weak authority vis-à-vis the agent (regular teachers), increasing that authority using an incomplete but verifiable contract works better than using a more comprehensive but subjective one.
Keywords: performance pay; social accountability; education; Indonesia; remote schools
JEL Codes: H52; I21; I25; I28; O15
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| community authority over teacher performance pay (M52) | teacher accountability (A29) |
| teacher accountability (A29) | student learning outcomes (A22) |
| community authority over teacher performance pay (M52) | student learning outcomes (A22) |
| camera-verified teacher presence (A20) | student learning outcomes (A22) |
| subjective evaluations (C52) | student learning outcomes (A22) |
| level of community authority (H70) | student learning outcomes (A22) |
| parental commitment to truthful assessments (I24) | student outcomes (A21) |
| ability to punish poor performance (M52) | student outcomes (A21) |