Posted: September 13th, 2017

Assignment information

Assignment information

The quality of school education is of substantial concern in most developed economies, including
Australia. Produce a report outlining the importance of teacher quality in achieving good
educational outcomes for children, and discussing the potential for a well designed compensation
contract to improve the performance of teachers.

In your report, you should refer to economic theory and empirical evidence. You should
discuss at least three empirical studies published in economics journals. The can examine either
the impact of teacher quality on educational outcomes, or the impact of teachers’ compensa-
tion contracts on their performance or educational outcomes (or a mixture of the two). Two
suggested empirical papers are given below: you can use these as two of your three empirical
studies if you wish to.

Background reading

0 Derek Neal (2011), ‘The design of performance pay in education’, Handbook of the Eco-
nomics of Education
http : //www. sciencedirect . com/science/article/pii/B97804445344460ooO67

0 Eric Hanushek and Steven Rivkin (2006), ‘Teacher Quality’, Handbook of the Economics
of Education
http : //www. sciencedirect . com/science/article/pii/S1574069206020186#

0 Zahid Hasnain, Nick Manning and Jan Henryk Pierskalla (2012), ‘Performance-related
Pay in the Public Sector: A Review of Theory and Evidence’, World Bank Policy Research
Working Paper No. 6043
https : //openknowledge . worldbank . org/handle/10986/6046

0 Edward Lazear (2003), ‘Teacher incentives’, Swedish Economic Policy Review 10 pp.179-
214
http : //www . ppge . ufrgs . br/GIACOMO/arquivos/ecop137/lazear-2003 . pdf

Empirical evidence: suggestions

0 Jonah E. Rockoff (2004), ‘The Impact of Individual Teachers on Student Achievement:
Evidence from Panel Data’, The American Economic Review 94(2) pp.247-252
http : //www . j stor . org/stable/3592891

0 Andrew Leigh (2012), ‘Teacher pay and teacher aptitude’, Economics of Education Review
31 pp.41-53
http : //andrewleigh . org/pdf/TeacherPayTeacherAptitude .pdf