This paper provides evidence on a large-scale teacher incentive program in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, which awarded group bonuses to teachers and school staff conditional on improvements in student performance. By using a difference-in-differences (DD) and tripledifferences (DDD) framework with a series of alternative counterfactual groups, I show that the program had positive effects on student achievement up to seven years after the program implementation, although improvements vary across grades and subjects. While it could be expected that free-riding effects increase with the number of teachers in schools, limiting the impact of the program, this does not seem to be the case.
Individual Teacher Incentives, Student Achievement and Grade Inflation