Performance Pay and Teachers' Effort, Productivity, and Grading Ethics

Victor Lavy

American Economic Review, 2009, vol. 99, issue 5, 1979-2011

Abstract: This paper presents evidence about the effect of individual monetary incentives on English and math teachers in Israel. Teachers were rewarded with cash bonuses for improving their students' performance in high-school matriculation exams. The main identification strategy is based on measurement error in the assignment to treatment variable that produced a randomized treatment sample. The incentives led to significant improvements in test taking rates, conditional pass rates, and mean test scores. Improvements were mediated through changes in teaching methods, enhanced after-school teaching, and increased responsiveness to students' needs. No evidence was found of manipulation of test scores by teachers. (JEL I21, J31, J45)

JEL-codes: I21 J31 J45 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
Note: DOI: 10.1257/aer.99.5.1979
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (124)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.99.5.1979 (application/pdf)
http://www.aeaweb.org/aer/data/dec09/20060532_data.zip (application/zip)
http://www.aeaweb.org/aer/data/dec09/20060532_app.pdf (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Performance Pay and Teachers' Effort, Productivity and Grading Ethics (2004)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:99:y:2009:i:5:p:1979-2011

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

Access Statistics for this article

American Economic Review is currently edited by Esther Duflo

More articles in American Economic Review from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().