Could do Better: The Effectiveness of Incentives and Competition in Schools

Gianni De Fraja () and Pedro Landeras
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Pedro Landeras: University of Cantabria - Department of Economics

CEIS Research Paper from Tor Vergata University, CEIS

Abstract: This paper studies the effects of incentive mechanisms and of the competitive environment on the interaction between schools and students, in a set-up where the students' educational attainment depends on their peer group, on their effort, and on the quality of the school's teaching. We show that increasing the power of the incentive scheme and the effectiveness of competition may have the counterintuitive effect of lowering the students' effort, with ambiguous effects on their attainment. In a simple dynamic set-up, where the reputation of the schools affects recruitment, we show that increased competition leads to segregation of pupils by ability.

Keywords: Students effort; Schools quality; Peer-group effect; Incentives (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I20 H42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-hrm, nep-pbe and nep-ure
Date: 2004-02-18
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Related works:
Working Paper: Could Do Better: The Effectiveness of Incentives and Competition in Schools
Journal Article: Could do better: The effectiveness of incentives and competition in schools (2006)
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:rtv:ceisrp:48

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