article by Esther Duflo, Rema Hanna, and Stephen Ryan
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Building off a previous article in which teacher absenteeism was suggested to be a significant problem for developing countries, Esther Duflo, Hanna Rema and Ryan Stephen designed an experiment to try to incentivize teachers to go to class. They had the children take a picture with the teacher at the beginning and the end of the day. The researchers found that this interventions made a difference in teacher attendance.
Abstract:
We use a randomized experiment and a structural model to test whether monitoring and financial incentives can reduce teacher absence and increase learning in India. In treatment schools, teachers' attendance was monitored daily using cameras, and their salaries were made a nonlinear function of attendance. Teacher absenteeism in the treatment group fell by 21 percentage points relative to the control group, and the children's test scores increased by 0.17 standard deviations. We estimate a structural dynamic labor supply model and find that teachers respond strongly to financial incentives. Our model is used to compute cost-minimizing compensation policies. (JEL I21, J31, J45, O15)
Citation:
Duflo, Esther, Rema Hanna, and Stephen P. Ryan. 2012. "Incentives Work: Getting Teachers to Come to School." American Economic Review, 102 (4): 1241-78.