First we discuss how extrinsic incentives may come into conflict with other motivations. For example, monetary incentives from principals may change how tasks are perceived by agents, with negative effects on behavior. In other cases, incentives might have the desired effects in the short term, but they still weaken intrinsic motivations. To put it in concrete terms, an incentive for a child to learn to read might achieve that goal in the short term, but then be counterproductive as an incentive for students to enjoy reading and seek it out over their lifetimes. Next we examine the research literature on three important examples in which monetary incentives have been used in a nonemployment context to foster the desired behavior: education; increasing contributions to public goods; and helping people change their lifestyles, particularly with regard to smoking and exercise. The conclusion sums up some lessons on when extrinsic incentives are more or less likely to alter such behaviors in the desired directions.

https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.25.4.191

When and Why Incentives (Don't) Work to Modify Behavior

With contributions from

This brief summarizes the results of a gender impact evaluation study, entitled Cash or condition evidence from a cash transfer experiment, conducted from 2008 to the end of 2009 in Malawi. The study observed the impact of conditionality in cash transfer programs with two distinct interventions: unconditional transfers (UCT arm) and transfers conditional on school attendance (CCT arm) targeted at adolescent girls in Malawi on individual level. Dropout rates declined in both treatment arms, however the UCT arm is 43 percent as large as the CCT arm. The fraction of days attended in the CCT arm is significantly higher than the UCT. Cognitive ability, math and English scores significantly improve for the CCT but not for the UCT. Probability of pregnancy and marriage were much lower in the UCT arm. The delays in marriage and fertility in the UCT arm are found entirely among adolescent girls who dropped out of school after the start of the intervention. Improvements in human capital for the recipients of the CCT are achieved at the cost of worse outcomes for people who drop out of school. Funding for the study derived from the Global Development Network, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Africa Project, World Bank Research Support Budget Grant, World Bank Knowledge for Change Trust Fund, World Development Report 2007 Small Grants Fund, Spanish Impact Evaluation Fund, and Gender Action Plan Trust Fund.

/pdf/cash-or-condition-evidence-from-a-cash-transfer-experiment-4p1l5wdb40.pdf

Cash or Condition? Evidence from a Cash Transfer Experiment

Several developing economies have recently introduced conditional cash transfer programs, which provide money to poor families contingent on certain behavior, usually investments in human capital, such as sending children to school or bringing them to health centers. The approach is both an alternative to more traditional social assistance programs and a demand-side complement to the supply of health and education services. Unlike most development initiatives, conditional cash transfer programs have been subject to rigorous evaluations of their effectiveness using experimental or quasi-experimental methods. Evaluation results for programs launched in Colombia, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Turkey reveal successes in addressing many of the failures in delivering social assistance, such as weak poverty targeting, disincentive effects, and limited welfare impacts. There is clear evidence of success from the first generation of programs in Colombia, Mexico, and Nicaragua in increasing enrollment rates, improving preventive health care, and raising household consumption. Many questions remain unanswered, however, including the potential of conditional cash transfer programs to function well under different conditions, to address a broader range of challenges among poor and vulnerable populations, and to prevent the intergenerational transmission of poverty.

/pdf/evaluating-the-impact-of-conditional-cash-transfer-programs-1wsrza7i94.pdf

Evaluating the impact of conditional cash transfer programs

The positive cross-sectional relationship between the schooling of mothers and their children is substantially biased upward due to correlations between schooling and heritable ability as well as assortative mating. An increase in the schooling of women would not have beneficial effects in terms of the schooling of children. Increased maternal schooling leads to reduced home time for mothers. Anticipating the consequences of investing in women's schooling requires attention to the role that schooling plays in the marriage market as well as to opportunities in the labor market for women.

/pdf/does-increasing-women-s-schooling-raise-the-schooling-of-the-2z39x73832.pdf

Does Increasing Women's Schooling Raise the Schooling of the Next Generation?

A new antipoverty program in Mexico, PROGRESA, provides monetary transfers to families that are contingent upon their children’s regular attendance at school. The benefit levels vary with the grade level and gender of the child and are intended to offset the opportunity costs of not sending children to school. The initial phase of the program was implemented as a randomized social experiment. This article uses a Markov schooling transition model applied to the experimental data to assess the impact of the subsidy program on schooling attainment and on the underlying behaviors that determine schooling attainment, including ages of matriculation, dropout rates, grade repetition rates, and school reentry rates. Results show that the program increases schooling attainment effectively by reducing dropout rates and facilitating grade progression, particularly during the transition from primary to secondary school. Many of these effects would not be clear if attention were limited to enrollments as in m...

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/431263

Progressing through PROGRESA: An Impact Assessment of a School Subsidy Experiment in Rural Mexico

A new anti-poverty program in Mexico, PROGRESA, provides monetary transfers to families that are contingent upon their children's regular attendance at school. The benefit levels are intended to offset the opportunity costs of not sending children to school and vary with the grade level and gender of the child. The initial phase of the program was implemented as a randomized social experiment. This paper uses a Markov schooling transition model applied to the experimental data to assess the impact of the educational subsidy program along several dimensions, including effects on initial ages of school entry, dropout rates, grade repetition rates, and school reentry rates. The findings show that the program effectively reduces drop-out rates and facilitates progression through the grades, particularly during the transition from primary to secondary school. Results based on a simulation evaluating the effects of longer terms of exposure to the program indicate that if children were to participate in the program between ages 6 to 14, they would experience an increase of 0.6 years in average educational attainment levels years and an increase of 19% in the percentage of children attending junior secondary school.

Progressing through progresa: an impact assessment of a school subsidy experiment

The impact of progresa on achievement test scores in the first year

Assessment of mechanical and micro-structural characterization of novel ambient cured cement-free composite concrete

Tropical Pulmonary Eosinophilia (TPE) is a form of occult filariasis characterised clinically by paroxysms of nocturnal cough, wheezing and dyspnoea . It is due to hyper-responsive pulmonary reaction to trapped microfilaria inside the lung tissue. Though it is common in endemic areas, it is frequently misdiagnosed mostly as bronchial asthma or tuberculosis and the patient continues to suffer without being treated appropriately. A 36-year-old male, who presented with fever, cough and shortness of breath for a period of 6 months was misdiagnosed as Interstitial Lung Disease (ILD) and was put on antifibrotic agents without any relief of symptoms. He was thoroughly investigated with routine haematological tests, Absolute Eosinophil Count (AEC), X-ray of chest, High Resolution Computed Tomography (HRCT) thorax including bronchoalveolar lavage and was diagnosed as Tropical Pulmonary Eosinophilia (TPE). Diethyl Carbamazine citrate (DEC) was initiated and patient had satisfactory recovery. So in endemic areas the possibility of TPE should always be kept in mind while evaluating cases presenting with chronic cough, dyspnea and wheezing even if the radiological imaging may mimic ILD.

Piyali Sengupta

Papers

Progressing through PROGRESA: An Impact Assessment of a School Subsidy Experiment in Rural Mexico

Progressing through progresa: an impact assessment of a school subsidy experiment

The impact of progresa on achievement test scores in the first year

Assessment of mechanical and micro-structural characterization of novel ambient cured cement-free composite concrete

Tropical Pulmonary Eosinophilia Masquerading as Interstitial Lung Disease: An Interesting Case Report with Review of Literature