Recruitment, Effort, and Retention Effects of Performance Contracts for Civil Servants: Experimental Evidence from Rwandan Primary Schools

This paper reports on a two-tiered experiment designed to separately identify the selection and effort margins of pay for performance (P4P). At the recruitment stage, teacher labor markets were randomly assigned to a “pay-for-percentile” or fixed-wage contract. Once recruits were placed, an unexpected, incentive-compatible, school-level re-randomization was performed so that some teachers who applied for a fixed-wage contract ended up being paid by P4P, and vice versa. By the second year of the study, the within-year effort effect of P4P was 0.16 standard deviations of pupil learning, with the total effect rising to 0.20 standard deviations after allowing for selection. (JEL C93, I21, J23, J33, J41, J45, O15)

Starting a Conversation: The Effort, Effect and Affect of Trans Poetics

In the introduction to Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics, editor TC Tolbert states that the cultural work of this anthology is, in part, “an attempt to expand the range of what is possible for trans and genderqueer poets and to acknowledge that there is no such thing as monolithic trans and genderqueer poetry” (10). Tolbert further notes that there are two dangers to producing an anthology that will, undoubtedly, shift literary culture: they are exclusion and isolation or confinement (11). Tolbert and fellow editor Trace Peterson are both aware, then, that as a burgeoning field of study and literary culture, transgender poetry and poetics simply cannot be defined, lest they perpetuate exclusion (a state with which trans writers are most familiar) and isolation (Tolbert here cites a “biographical frame [that] puts more emphasis on the author ... than the actual poems” - but the editors are also rightly concerned that only other trans people will be interested in trans poetics, meaning cisgender readers will overlook these works [11]).

Starting a Conversation: The Effort, Effect and Affect of Trans Poetics

In the introduction to Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics, editor TC Tolbert states that the cultural work of this anthology is, in part, “an attempt to expand the range of what is possible for trans and genderqueer poets and to acknowledge that there is no such thing as monolithic trans and genderqueer poetry” (10). Tolbert further notes that there are two dangers to producing an anthology that will, undoubtedly, shift literary culture: they are exclusion and isolation or confinement (11). Tolbert and fellow editor Trace Peterson are both aware, then, that as a burgeoning field of study and literary culture, transgender poetry and poetics simply cannot be defined, lest they perpetuate exclusion (a state with which trans writers are most familiar) and isolation (Tolbert here cites a “biographical frame [that] puts more emphasis on the author ... than the actual poems” - but the editors are also rightly concerned that only other trans people will be interested in trans poetics, meaning cisgender readers will overlook these works [11]).

Radiation Biomarkers in Large Scale Human Health Effects Studies

Following recent developments, the RENEB network (Running the European Network of biological dosimetry and physical retrospective dosimetry) is in an excellent position to carry out large scale molecular epidemiological studies of ionizing radiation effects, with validated expertise in the dicentric, fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH)-translocation, micronucleus, premature chromosome condensation, gamma-H2AX foci and gene expression assays. Large scale human health effects studies present complex challenges such as the practical aspects of sample logistics, assay costs, effort, effect modifiers and quality control/assurance measures. At Public Health England, the dicentric, automated micronucleus and gamma-H2AX radiation-induced foci assays have been tested for use in a large health effects study. The results of the study and the experience gained in carrying out such a large scale investigation provide valuable information that could help minimise random and systematic errors in biomarker data sets for health surveillance analyses going forward.

Recruitment, Effort, and Retention Effects of Performance Contracts for Civil Servants: Experimental Evidence from Rwandan Primary Schools

This paper reports on a two-tiered experiment designed to separately identify the selection and effort margins of pay-for-performance (P4P). At the recruitment stage, teacher labor markets were randomly assigned to a pay-for-percentile or fixed-wage contract. Once recruits were placed, an unexpected, incentive-compatible, school-level re-randomization was performed, so that some teachers who applied for a fixed-wage contract ended up being paid by P4P, and vice versa. By the second year of the study, the within-year effort effect of P4P was 0.16 standard deviations of pupil learning, with the total effect rising to 0.20 standard deviations after allowing for selection.

Supply Chain Coordination under Trade Credit and Quantity Discount with Sales Effort Effects

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of trade credit and quantity discount in supply chain coordination when the sales effort effect on market demand is considered. In this paper, we consider a two-echelon supply chain consisting of a single retailer ordering a single product from a single manufacturer. Market demand is stochastic and is influenced by retailer sales effort. We formulate an analytical model based on a single trade credit and find that the single trade credit cannot achieve the perfect coordination of the supply chain. Then, we develop a hybrid quantitative analytical model for supply chain coordination by coherently integrating incentives of trade credit and quantity discount with sales effort effects. The results demonstrate that, providing that the discount rate satisfies certain conditions, the proposed hybrid model combining trade credit and quantity discount will be able to effectively coordinate the supply chain by motivating retailers to exert their sales effort and increase product order quantity. Furthermore, the hybrid quantitative analytical model can provide great flexibility in coordinating the supply chain to achieve an optimal situation through the adjustment of relevant parameters to resolve conflict of interests from different supply chain members. Numerical examples are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the hybrid model.

Affirmative Action: One Size Does Not Fit All

This paper identifies a new reason for giving preferences to the disadvantaged using a model of contests. There are two forces at work: the effort effect working against giving preferences and the selection effect working in favor of them. When education is costly and easy to obtain (as in the United States), the selection effect dominates. When education is heavily subsidized and limited in supply (as in India), preferences are welfare reducing. The model also shows that unequal treatment of identical agents can be welfare improving, providing insights into when the counterintuitive policy of rationing educational access to some subgroups is welfare improving. (JEL H52, H75, I23, I28, J15, O15)

A New Software Reliability Growth Model: Multigeneration Faults and a Power-Law Testing-Effort Function

Software reliability growth models (SRGMs) based on a nonhomogeneous Poisson process (NHPP) are widely used to describe the stochastic failure behavior and assess the reliability of software systems. For these models, the testing-effort effect and the fault interdependency play significant roles. Considering a power-law function of testing effort and the interdependency of multigeneration faults, we propose a modified SRGM to reconsider the reliability of open source software (OSS) systems and then to validate the model’s performance using several real-world data. Our empirical experiments show that the model well fits the failure data and presents a high-level prediction capability. We also formally examine the optimal policy of software release, considering both the testing cost and the reliability requirement. By conducting sensitivity analysis, we find that if the testing-effort effect or the fault interdependency was ignored, the best time to release software would be seriously delayed and more resources would be misplaced in testing the software.