Can Pay Draw Teachers to Hard-to-Staff Schools? Evidence From Chile

• In Event: Education Finance, Pay, and Productivity

Abstract

Schools serving socially and economically disadvantaged students often have particular difficulties attracting and retaining high quality teachers, both in the United States and internationally. Numerous authors suggest rigid wage structures are partially responsible, making it difficult to adjust wages to compensate teachers for difficult working conditions.
Chilean schools offer a nominal bonus for teaching in high poverty urban schools and remote rural schools. We exploit regional variation and discontinuities in the bonus structure to examine how teachers respond to the policy. We find schools with higher bonuses attract more inexperienced teachers, albeit perhaps slightly more skilled ones. Teachers also work slightly fewer hours. Most troublingly, student test scores are lower at schools with higher bonuses.

Authors

• Rebecca Hinze-Pifer, University of Chicago

• Carolina Mendez, University of Chicago