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

39 Pages Posted: 22 Nov 2014

See all articles by Todd Pugatch

Todd Pugatch

Oregon State University; IZA

Elizabeth Schroeder

Oregon State University - Department of Economics

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

JEL Classification: I25, I28, J38, J45, O12, O15

Suggested Citation

Pugatch, Todd and Schroeder, Elizabeth, Teacher Pay and Student Performance: Evidence from the Gambian Hardship Allowance. IZA Discussion Paper No. 8621, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2529330 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2529330

Todd Pugatch (Contact Author)

Oregon State University ( email )

Corvallis, OR 97331
United States

HOME PAGE: http://https://sites.google.com/site/toddpugatch/

IZA ( email )

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

Elizabeth Schroeder

Oregon State University - Department of Economics ( email )

Corvallis, OR 97331
United States

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