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Teacher Pay and Educational Outcomes: Evidence from the Rural Hardship Allowance in Zambia

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  • Grieve Chelwa
  • Miquel Pellicer
  • Mashekwa Maboshe

Abstract

This paper studies the effect of unconditional teacher salary increases on teacher and student outcomes. To study the issue, we evaluate the rural hardship allowance in Zambia, which corresponds to a salary increase of 20%. This allowance is allocated to schools on the basis of a distance criterion allowing us to use a regression discontinuity design. We use administrative data from 2004 to 2015 on school, teacher characteristics and test scores. The administrative data are complemented with a telephone survey of schools close to the eligibility threshold. We find that crossing the threshold increases the share of teachers obtaining the allowance by 40%. Because of some non‐compliance with the allocation rule, our estimates are fairly imprecise. Focusing on provinces with better compliance we find some, albeit weak, evidence that the allowance increases the stock of teachers. We, however, find no effects on teacher characteristics or on student test scores.

Suggested Citation

  • Grieve Chelwa & Miquel Pellicer & Mashekwa Maboshe, 2019. "Teacher Pay and Educational Outcomes: Evidence from the Rural Hardship Allowance in Zambia," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 87(3), pages 255-282, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:sajeco:v:87:y:2019:i:3:p:255-282
    DOI: 10.1111/saje.12227
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    1. Ernesto Dal Bó & Frederico Finan & Martín A. Rossi, 2013. "Strengthening State Capabilities: The Role of Financial Incentives in the Call to Public Service," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 128(3), pages 1169-1218.
    2. Antwi, James & Phillips, David C., 2013. "Wages and health worker retention: Evidence from public sector wage reforms in Ghana," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 101-115.
    3. Guido Imbens & Karthik Kalyanaraman, 2012. "Optimal Bandwidth Choice for the Regression Discontinuity Estimator," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(3), pages 933-959.
    4. Sebastian Calonico & Matias D. Cattaneo & Max H. Farrell & Roc ́ıo Titiunik, 2017. "rdrobust: Software for regression-discontinuity designs," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 17(2), pages 372-404, June.
    5. McCrary, Justin, 2008. "Manipulation of the running variable in the regression discontinuity design: A density test," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 698-714, February.
    6. Karthik Muralidharan & Venkatesh Sundararaman, 2011. "Teacher Performance Pay: Experimental Evidence from India," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 119(1), pages 39-77.
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    Cited by:

    1. Crawfurd, Lee & Pugatch, Todd, 2020. "Teacher Labor Markets in Developing Countries," IZA Discussion Papers 12985, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Yanzhi Zhao & Mingsi Zhao & Fengyu Shi, 2024. "Integrating Moral Education and Educational Information Technology: A Strategic Approach to Enhance Rural Teacher Training in Universities," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 15(3), pages 15053-15093, September.
    3. Cattaneo, Andrea & Adukia, Anjali & Brown, David L. & Christiaensen, Luc & Evans, David K. & Haakenstad, Annie & McMenomy, Theresa & Partridge, Mark & Vaz, Sara & Weiss, Daniel J., 2022. "Economic and social development along the urban–rural continuum: New opportunities to inform policy," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    4. Evans, David K. & Yuan, Fei & Filmer, Deon, 2022. "Teacher pay in Africa: Evidence from 15 countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    5. Torsten Figueiredo Walter, 2020. "Misallocation in the Public Sector? Cross-Country Evidence from Two Million Primary Schools," STICERD - Economic Organisation and Public Policy Discussion Papers Series 70, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.

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