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Quarterly Journal of Economics Vol. 134 No. 3 2019

Inputs, Incentives, and Complementarities in Education: Experimental Evidence from Tanzania*

Isaac Mbiti1; Karthik Muralidharan2; Mauricio Romero3; Youdi Schipper4; Constantine Manda5; Rakesh Rajani4

1 University of Virginia, Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab, and Institute of Labor Economics · 2 University of California, San Diego; National Bureau of Economic Research; and Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab · 3 Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México · 4 Twaweza · 5 Yale University

open access

Abstract

We present results from a large-scale randomized experiment across 350 schools in Tanzania that studied the impact of providing schools with (i) unconditional grants, (ii) teacher incentives based on student performance, and (iii) both of the above. After two years, we find (i) no impact on student test scores from providing school grants, (ii) some evidence of positive effects from teacher incentives, and (iii) significant positive effects from providing both programs. Most important, we find strong evidence of complementarities between the programs, with the effect of joint provision being significantly greater than the sum of the individual effects. Our results suggest that combining spending on school inputs (the default policy) with improved teacher incentives could substantially increase the cost-effectiveness of public spending on education.

DOI
10.1093/qje/qjz010
Volume
134
Issue
3
Pages
1627-1673
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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