Teacher Pay and Student Performance: Evidence from the Gambian Hardship Allowance

Todd Pugatch and Elizabeth Schroeder

No 8621, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We evaluate the impact of the Gambian hardship allowance, which provides a salary premium of 30-40% to primary school teachers in remote locations, on student performance. A geographic discontinuity in the policy's implementation provides identifying variation. We find no effects of the hardship allowance on average student performance. These null average effects hide important heterogeneity, with learning gains for students at the top of the distribution and losses for those at the bottom. With over two dozen developing countries implementing similar policies to increase teacher compensation in rural schools, this study offers important evidence on their effectiveness.

Keywords: teacher compensation; rural schools; Gambia; program evaluation; regression discontinuity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I25 I28 J38 J45 O12 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 39 pages
Date: 2014-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev, nep-edu, nep-hrm and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Published - published in: Journal of Development Effectiveness, 2018, 10(2): 249-276.

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Journal Article: Teacher pay and student performance: evidence from the Gambian hardship allowance (2018)
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