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Performance bonuses in the public sector: Winner-take-all prizes versus proportional payments to reduce child malnutrition in India
We conduct a randomized trial to compare incentives for improved child outcomes among salaried caregivers in Chandigarh, India. A contest whose prize is divided among workers in proportion to measured gains yielded more improvement than a winner-take-all program. In our population of about 2000 chil...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
North-Holland Pub. Co.]
2020
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7457730/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32904677 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2018.10.003 |
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author | Singh, Prakarsh Masters, William A. |
author_facet | Singh, Prakarsh Masters, William A. |
author_sort | Singh, Prakarsh |
collection | PubMed |
description | We conduct a randomized trial to compare incentives for improved child outcomes among salaried caregivers in Chandigarh, India. A contest whose prize is divided among workers in proportion to measured gains yielded more improvement than a winner-take-all program. In our population of about 2000 children served by 85 workers, using proportional rewards led to weight-for-age malnutrition rates that were 4.3 percentage points lower at 3 months (when rewards were paid) and 5.9 points lower at 6 months (after the contest had ended), with mean weight-for-age z scores that were 0.071 higher at 3 months, and 0.095 higher at 6 months. Proportional bonuses led to larger and more sustained gains because of better performance by lower-ranked workers, whose efforts were not rewarded by a winner-take-all prize. Results are consistent with previous laboratory trials and athletic events, demonstrating the value of proportional rewards to improve development outcomes. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7457730 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | North-Holland Pub. Co.] |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-74577302020-09-03 Performance bonuses in the public sector: Winner-take-all prizes versus proportional payments to reduce child malnutrition in India Singh, Prakarsh Masters, William A. J Dev Econ Article We conduct a randomized trial to compare incentives for improved child outcomes among salaried caregivers in Chandigarh, India. A contest whose prize is divided among workers in proportion to measured gains yielded more improvement than a winner-take-all program. In our population of about 2000 children served by 85 workers, using proportional rewards led to weight-for-age malnutrition rates that were 4.3 percentage points lower at 3 months (when rewards were paid) and 5.9 points lower at 6 months (after the contest had ended), with mean weight-for-age z scores that were 0.071 higher at 3 months, and 0.095 higher at 6 months. Proportional bonuses led to larger and more sustained gains because of better performance by lower-ranked workers, whose efforts were not rewarded by a winner-take-all prize. Results are consistent with previous laboratory trials and athletic events, demonstrating the value of proportional rewards to improve development outcomes. North-Holland Pub. Co.] 2020-09 /pmc/articles/PMC7457730/ /pubmed/32904677 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2018.10.003 Text en © 2018 The Authors http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Article Singh, Prakarsh Masters, William A. Performance bonuses in the public sector: Winner-take-all prizes versus proportional payments to reduce child malnutrition in India |
title | Performance bonuses in the public sector: Winner-take-all prizes versus proportional payments to reduce child malnutrition in India |
title_full | Performance bonuses in the public sector: Winner-take-all prizes versus proportional payments to reduce child malnutrition in India |
title_fullStr | Performance bonuses in the public sector: Winner-take-all prizes versus proportional payments to reduce child malnutrition in India |
title_full_unstemmed | Performance bonuses in the public sector: Winner-take-all prizes versus proportional payments to reduce child malnutrition in India |
title_short | Performance bonuses in the public sector: Winner-take-all prizes versus proportional payments to reduce child malnutrition in India |
title_sort | performance bonuses in the public sector: winner-take-all prizes versus proportional payments to reduce child malnutrition in india |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7457730/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32904677 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jdeveco.2018.10.003 |
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