1. Teaching and incentives: Substitutes or complements?
- Author
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Allen IV, James, Mahumane, Arlete, Riddell IV, James, Rosenblat, Tanya, Yang, Dean, and Yu, Hang
- Subjects
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COVID-19 treatment , *MONETARY incentives , *STANDARD deviations , *SUPPLY & demand , *COVID-19 testing - Abstract
Interventions to promote learning are often categorized into supply- and demand-side approaches. In a randomized experiment to promote learning about COVID-19 among Mozambican adults, we study the interaction between a supply and a demand intervention, respectively: teaching via targeted feedback, and providing financial incentives to learners. In theory, teaching and learner-incentives may be substitutes (crowding out one another) or complements (enhancing one another). Experts surveyed in advance predicted a high degree of substitutability between the two treatments. In contrast, we find substantially more complementarity than experts predicted. Combining teaching and incentive treatments raises COVID-19 knowledge test scores by 0.5 standard deviations, though the standalone teaching treatment is the most cost-effective. The complementarity between teaching and incentives persists in the longer run, over nine months post-treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2022
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