Which incentives work? An experimental analysis of incentives for trainers

One conjecture in the theory of incentives is that incentives based on broader outcomes may be better at motivating agents than incentives based on narrow measures. We designed an experiment to test these hypotheses using a ""prospective randomized evaluation procedure"" (PREP). We then apply PREP to training programs as typically funded by donors of economic development assistance. We randomly assigned 274 participating entrepreneurs in the Philippines to one of 26, simultaneous, one-day, training classes in marketing. Trainers were given cash incentives based on the average score of their ""students"" on a standardized test containing an alternative number of questions, which were randomly assigned to each class. We then examined outcomes based on student satisfaction ratings of the trainer. Our results suggest that incentives based on broad outcomes are more effective than incentives based on narrow outcomes. We conclude with ways to improve our approach as well as with a discussion of the implications for using prospective randomized evaluation for improving the evaluation of donor projects.randomized trials, project evaluation, teacher incentives, aid effectiveness

Are larger countries really more corrupt?

Several authors claim to provide evidence that government corruption is less severe in small than in large countries. The authors demonstrate that this relationship is an artifact of sample selection. Most corruption indicators provide ratings only for the countries in which multi-national investors have the greatest interest. These tend to include almost all large nations but, among small nations, only those that are well governed. The authors find that the relationship between corruption and country size disappears when one uses either a new corruption indicator with substantially increased country coverage or an alternative corruption indicator that covers all World Bank borrowers without regard to country size. They also show that the relationship between corruption and trade intensity--a variable strongly related to population--disappears when samples less subject to selection bias are used.National Governance,Governance Indicators,Corruption&Anitcorruption Law,Public Sector Corruption&Anticorruption Measures,Poverty Monitoring&Analysis

A linear bound on the k-rendezvous time for primitive sets of NZ matrices

A set of nonnegative matrices is called primitive if there exists a product of these matrices that is entrywise positive. Motivated by recent results relating synchronizing automata and primitive sets, we study the length of the shortest product of a primitive set having a column or a row with k positive entries, called its k-rendezvous time (k-RT}), in the case of sets of matrices having no zero rows and no zero columns. We prove that the k-RT is at most linear w.r.t. the matrix size n for small k, while the problem is still open for synchronizing automata. We provide two upper bounds on the k-RT: the second is an improvement of the first one, although the latter can be written in closed form. We then report numerical results comparing our upper bounds on the k-RT with heuristic approximation methods.Comment: 27 pages, 10 figur

Tensile and fatigue properties of bituminous mixtures between limestone and recycle concrete aggregates

The purpose of this study is to determine the tensile and fatigue properties of bituminous mixture using limestone and recycle concrete aggregates, which were obtained through planned laboratory processing. The objective of this work is to understand the behaviour of bituminous mixtures, as well as investigating the numerical relationship between the properties of aggregates on the behaviour and performance of bituminous mixtures. The performance of a bituminous mixture is greatly influenced by the properties of the aggregate used. Many studies have been conducted on this subject matter globally, which is not specific to the tensile and fatigue properties of the bituminous mixture. Usual methods to determine the characteristic of the mixture use involved several tests such as the Indirect Tensile Stiffness Module Test and Beam Fatigue Test. This project also attempts to address the most suitable aggregate type to be used in bituminous mixture. Different aggregate have their own strength, physical and chemical properties that will affect the strength and stiffness of the bitumen mixtures