Teacher Turnover and Financial Incentives in Underprivileged Schools: Evidence from a Compensation Policy in a Developing Country

Rafael Camelo and Vladimir Ponczek

Economics of Education Review, 2021, vol. 80, issue C

Abstract: This paper evaluates the impacts of a policy that introduced a sizeable wage premium (24% to 36%) to teachers at disadvantaged schools on teacher turnover in the public school system in São Paulo, Brazil. We explore a discontinuity at the eligibility rule to identify the policy effect. We find that the wage compensation reduced turnover by 5 p.p. (10.4% over the pre-treatment average). We also show that this policy positively impacted the achievement of low-performing students, but had no effects on average test scores. We rule out alternative explanations, such as reallocation of teachers or direct effects of the wage increase. These results suggest a disruptive effect of teacher turnover on learning, especially on students at the bottom of the test score distribution.

Keywords: teacher labor markets; teacher turnover (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I20 J38 J45 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:80:y:2021:i:c:s0272775720305537

DOI: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2020.102067

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