IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/labeco/v18y2011i5p643-655.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Curbing cream-skimming: Evidence on enrolment incentives

Author

Listed:
  • Courty, Pascal
  • Kim, Do Han
  • Marschke, Gerald

Abstract

Using data from a large, U.S. federal job training program, we investigate whether enrolment incentives that exogenously vary the 'shadow prices' for serving different demographic subgroups of clients influence case workers' intake decisions. We show that case workers enroll more clients from subgroups whose shadow prices increase but select at the margin weaker-performing members from those subgroups. We conclude that enrolment incentives curb cream-skimming across subgroups leaving a residual potential for cream-skimming within a subgroup.

Suggested Citation

  • Courty, Pascal & Kim, Do Han & Marschke, Gerald, 2011. "Curbing cream-skimming: Evidence on enrolment incentives," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(5), pages 643-655, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:labeco:v:18:y:2011:i:5:p:643-655
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927537111000212
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cragg, Michael, 1997. "Performance Incentives in the Public Sector: Evidence from the Job Training Partnership Act," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 13(1), pages 147-168, April.
    2. James J. Heckman & Carolyn J. Heinrich & Pascal Courty & Gerald Marschke & Jeffrey Smith (ed.), 2011. "The Performance of Performance Standards," Books from Upjohn Press, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, number tpps, November.
    3. James J. Heckman & Jeffrey A. Smith, 2004. "The Determinants of Participation in a Social Program: Evidence from a Prototypical Job Training Program," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 22(2), pages 243-298, April.
    4. Jacob, Brian A., 2005. "Accountability, incentives and behavior: the impact of high-stakes testing in the Chicago Public Schools," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(5-6), pages 761-796, June.
    5. James J. Heckman & Carolyn Heinrich & Jeffrey Smith, 2002. "The Performance of Performance Standards," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 37(4), pages 778-811.
    6. Kathryn H. Anderson & Richard V. Burkhauser & Jennie E. Raymond, 1993. "The Effect of Creaming on Placement Rates under the Job Training Partnership Act," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 46(4), pages 613-624, July.
    7. Ladd, Helen F., 1999. "The Dallas school accountability and incentive program: an evaluation of its impacts on student outcomes," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 1-16, February.
    8. James J. Heckman & Jeffrey A. Smith & Christopher Taber, 1996. "What Do Bureaucrats Do? The Effects of Performance Standards and Bureaucratic Preferences on Acceptance into the JTPA Program," NBER Working Papers 5535, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Buchner, Florian & Wasem, Jurgen, 2003. "Needs for further improvement: risk adjustment in the German health insurance system," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 65(1), pages 21-35, July.
    10. Simon Burgess & Carol Propper & Marisa Ratto & Emma Tominey, 2003. "Incentives in the Public Sector: Some Preliminary Evidence from a UK Government Agency," The Centre for Market and Public Organisation 03/080, The Centre for Market and Public Organisation, University of Bristol, UK.
    11. David Dranove & Daniel Kessler & Mark McClellan & Mark Satterthwaite, 2003. "Is More Information Better? The Effects of "Report Cards" on Health Care Providers," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(3), pages 555-588, June.
    12. Brian A. Jacob & Steven D. Levitt, 2003. "Rotten Apples: An Investigation of the Prevalence and Predictors of Teacher Cheating," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(3), pages 843-877.
    13. Iezzoni, L.I. & Ash, A.S. & Shwartz, M. & Daley, J. & Hughes, J.S. & Mackieman, Y.D., 1996. "Judging hospitals by severity-adjusted mortality rates: The influence of the severity-adjustment method," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 86(10), pages 1379-1387.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Carolyn J. Heinrich & Gerald Marschke, 2010. "Incentives and their dynamics in public sector performance management systems," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(1), pages 183-208.
    2. Boockmann Bernhard & Brändle Tobias, 2019. "Coaching, Counseling, Case-Working: Do They Help the Older Unemployed Out of Benefit Receipt and Back Into the Labor Market?," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 20(4), pages 436-468, December.
    3. Homrighausen, Pia, 2014. "Differential pricing and private provider performance," IAB-Discussion Paper 201425, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany].
    4. Michael Olejniczak & Dirk Salmon & Wenzel Matiaske & Simon Fietze, 2014. "Arbeitsbedingungen in Jobcentern - Gemeinsame Einrichtungen nach § 44b SGB II Mitarbeiterbefragung zum Arbeitsumfeld, psychischer Belastung und Arbeitszufriedenheit," Report 028, Werkstatt für Organisations- und Personalforschung.
    5. Pierre Koning & C.J. Heinrich, 2009. "Cream-skimming, parking and other intended and unintended effects of performance-based contracting in social welfare services," CPB Discussion Paper 134, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pascal Courty & Gerald Marschke, 2003. "Making Government Accountable: Lessons from a Federal Job Training Program," The Centre for Market and Public Organisation 03/083, The Centre for Market and Public Organisation, University of Bristol, UK.
    2. James J. Heckman & Carolyn Heinrich & Jeffrey Smith, 2002. "The Performance of Performance Standards," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 37(4), pages 778-811.
    3. Julie Berry Cullen & Randall Reback, 2006. "Tinkering Toward Accolades: School Gaming Under a Performance Accountability System," NBER Working Papers 12286, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Pierre Koning & C.J. Heinrich, 2009. "Cream-skimming, parking and other intended and unintended effects of performance-based contracting in social welfare services," CPB Discussion Paper 134, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    5. Kuhn, Michael & Siciliani, Luigi, 2007. "Performance Indicators for Quality with Adverse Selection, Gaming and Inequality Aversion," CEPR Discussion Papers 6261, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Pascal Courty & Gerald Marschke, 2004. "An Empirical Investigation of Gaming Responses to Explicit Performance Incentives," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 22(1), pages 23-56, January.
    7. Gerald Marschke & Pascal Courty, 2000. "An Empirical Investigation of Gaming Responses to Performance Incentives," Discussion Papers 00-12, University at Albany, SUNY, Department of Economics.
    8. Carolyn J. Heinrich & Laurence E. Lynn Jr., 1999. "Governance And Performance: The Influence of Program Structure and Management on Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) Program Outcomes," JCPR Working Papers 107, Northwestern University/University of Chicago Joint Center for Poverty Research.
    9. Burt S. Barnow & Jeffrey Smith, 2015. "Employment and Training Programs," NBER Chapters, in: Economics of Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the United States, Volume 2, pages 127-234, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Afridi, Farzana & Barooah, Bidisha & Somanathan, Rohini, 2020. "Improving learning outcomes through information provision: Experimental evidence from Indian villages," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    11. Derek Neal, 2011. "The Design of Performance Pay in Education," NBER Working Papers 16710, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Michael Kuhn & Luigi Siciliani, 2009. "Performance Indicators for Quality with Costly Falsification," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(4), pages 1137-1154, December.
    13. Courty, Pascal & Marschke, Gerald, 2004. "A General Test of Gaming," CEPR Discussion Papers 4514, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    14. Jones, Michael D., 2013. "Teacher behavior under performance pay incentives," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 148-164.
    15. 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.
    16. Makofske, Matthew Philip, 2020. "Mandatory disclosure, letter-grade systems, and corruption: The case of Los Angeles County restaurant inspections," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 292-313.
    17. Marta Fernández-Barcala & Manuel González-Díaz & Juan Prieto-Rodríguez, 2010. "Hotel Quality Appraisal on the Internet: A Market for Lemons?," Tourism Economics, , vol. 16(2), pages 345-360, June.
    18. Cuesta, José Ignacio & González, Felipe & Larroulet Philippi, Cristian, 2020. "Distorted quality signals in school markets," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    19. repec:ags:aaea22:335793 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Gadi Barlevy & Derek Neal, 2012. "Pay for Percentile," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(5), pages 1805-1831, August.
    21. Nick Manning & Zahid Hasnain & Jan Henryk Pierskalla, 2012. "Public Sector Human Resource Practices to Drive Performance," World Bank Publications - Reports 25489, The World Bank Group.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Performance measurement Performance standard Cream-skimming Enrolment incentives Bureaucrat behavior Public organizations;

    JEL classification:

    • H72 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Budget and Expenditures
    • J33 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Compensation Packages; Payment Methods
    • L14 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Transactional Relationships; Contracts and Reputation

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:labeco:v:18:y:2011:i:5:p:643-655. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/labeco .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.