Double for Nothing? Experimental Evidence on an Unconditional Teacher Salary Increase in Indonesia*
通过印尼教师工资翻倍的随机实验，发现无条件大幅加薪虽提升教师满意度和减少兼职，但两三年后对学生成绩无改善，表明此类政策难以提升公共部门员工绩效。
How does a large unconditional increase in salary affect the performance of incumbent employees in the public sector?We present experimental evidence on this question in the context of a policy change in Indonesia that led to a permanent doubling of teacher base salaries. Using a large-scale randomized experiment across a representative sample of Indonesian schools that accelerated this pay increase for teachers in treated schools, we find that the large pay increase significantly improved teachers' satisfaction with their income, reduced the incidence of teachers holding outside jobs, and reduced self-reported financial stress. Nevertheless, after two and three years, the increase in pay led to no improvement in student learning outcomes. The effects are precisely estimated, and we can rule out even modest positive impacts on test scores. Our results suggest that unconditional pay increases are unlikely to be an effective policy option for improving the effort and productivity of incumbent employees in public-sector settings.