Recruitment, Effort, and Retention Effects of Performance Contracts for Civil Servants: Experimental Evidence from Rwandan Primary Schools

Clare Leaver (), Owen Ozier, Pieter Serneels and Andrew Zeitlin
Additional contact information
Clare Leaver: University of Oxford

No 13696, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

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: teachers; incentives; selection; pay-for-performance; field experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 I21 J45 M52 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 82 pages
Date: 2020-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cta, nep-exp, nep-hrm, nep-lma and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Published - published in: American Economic Review 2021, 111 (7), 2213 - 2246

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https://docs.iza.org/dp13696.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Recruitment, Effort, and Retention Effects of Performance Contracts for Civil Servants: Experimental Evidence from Rwandan Primary Schools (2021)
Working Paper: Recruitment, effort, and retention effects of performance contracts for civil servants: Experimental evidence from Rwandan primary schools (2021)
Working Paper: Recruitment, effort, and retention effects of performance contracts for civil servants: Experimental evidence from Rwandan primary schools (2021)
Working Paper: Recruitment, Effort, and Retention Effects of Performance Contracts for Civil Servants: Experimental Evidence from Rwandan Primary Schools (2020)
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