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

Clare Leaver, Owen Ozier, Pieter Serneels and Andrew Zeitlin

No 15333, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

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: Pay-for-performance; Selection; Incentives; Teachers; Field experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 I21 J45 M52 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp and nep-hrm
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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