Teacher Performance Pay and Student Learning: Evidence From a Nationwide Program in Peru

Cristina Bellés-Obrero and Maria Lombardi

CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series from University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany

Abstract: We study the impact on student achievement of a nationwide teacher pay-for-performance program implemented in Peruvian public secondary schools in 2015. Schools compete in a tournament primarily based on 8th graders’ performance in a standardized test, where the principal and teachers of the top 20 percent of schools receive a substantial bonus. We perform a difference-in-differences estimation comparing the internal grades of 8th and 9th graders of the same school, before and after the program. We find a precisely estimated zero effect on student achievement, and we reject impacts greater than 0.017 standard deviations, well below those previously found in the literature. We provide evidence against a series of potential explanations, and argue that this zero effect could be a consequence of teachers’ uncertainty about how to improve their students’ performance in the standardized test tied to the bonus.

Keywords: education; teachers; incentives; compensation; Peru (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I21 J4 M52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 57
Date: 2019-09
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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https://www.crctr224.de/research/discussion-papers/archive/dp126

Related works:
Journal Article: Teacher Performance Pay and Student Learning: Evidence from a Nationwide Program in Peru (2022)
Working Paper: Teacher Performance Pay and Student Learning: Evidence from a Nationwide Program in Peru (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bon:boncrc:crctr224_2019_126

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