Essays in the Economics of Education and Health
type: CreativeWork
description: In this work, I study several aspects of the economics of education and health. The first chapter focuses on education, analyzing the New York City Teacher Bonus Program. Recent reviews of the program have found lower student test scores at schools randomly chosen to receive performance pay than at control schools not eligible for bonuses. Several studies have suggested lower intrinsic motivation among teachers at treatment schools as a possible mechanism driving these surprising results. The program was abruptly ended after three years, allowing me to use post-trial data to study the program's persistent effect on intrinsic motivation absent any effect on extrinsic motivation. While I replicate prior results showing that the teacher bonus program had a negative impact on student test scores, a difference-in-difference analysis of teacher survey responses indicates that this was not likely caused by a change in teachers' intrinsic motivation. Moreover, a regression discontinuity (RD) study demonstrates that the observed "negative" effect on test scores was not driven by a decline in performance at treatment schools, but rather by an increase in performance at control schools. This finding highlights a risk with RCT experiments in the social sciences: even with proper randomization, the control group may not be a valid counterfactual for the treatment group. The second chapter -- written with coauthors Jason Hockenberry, Michael Grossman, and Shin-Yi Chou -- focuses on health. We analyze patients' behavioral response to more invasive surgery. Over the last several decades, numerous medical studies have compared the effectiveness of two common procedures for Coronary Artery Disease: Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (PCI) and Coronary Artery Bypass Graft (CABG). Most evidence indicates that CABG -- the more invasive procedure -- leads to superior long term outcomes for otherwise similar patients, though there is little consensus as to why. In this article, we propose…
abstract: In this work, I study several aspects of the economics of education and health. The first chapter focuses on education, analyzing the New York City Teacher Bonus Program. Recent reviews of the program have found lower student test scores at schools randomly chosen to receive performance pay than at control schools not eligible for bonuses. Several studies have suggested lower intrinsic motivation among teachers at treatment schools as a possible mechanism driving these surprising results. The program was abruptly ended after three years, allowing me to use post-trial data to study the program's persistent effect on intrinsic motivation absent any effect on extrinsic motivation. While I replicate prior results showing that the teacher bonus program had a negative impact on student test scores, a difference-in-difference analysis of teacher survey responses indicates that this was not likely caused by a change in teachers' intrinsic motivation. Moreover, a regression discontinuity (RD) study demonstrates that the observed "negative" effect on test scores was not driven by a decline in performance at treatment schools, but rather by an increase in performance at control schools. This finding highlights a risk with RCT experiments in the social sciences: even with proper randomization, the control group may not be a valid counterfactual for the treatment group. The second chapter -- written with coauthors Jason Hockenberry, Michael Grossman, and Shin-Yi Chou -- focuses on health. We analyze patients' behavioral response to more invasive surgery. Over the last several decades, numerous medical studies have compared the effectiveness of two common procedures for Coronary Artery Disease: Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (PCI) and Coronary Artery Bypass Graft (CABG). Most evidence indicates that CABG -- the more invasive procedure -- leads to superior long term outcomes for otherwise similar patients, though there is little consensus as to why. In this article, we propose…
author: Margolis, Jesse
keywords: Economics, Intrinsic motivation; Merit pay; Teacher bonus
date published: 2015-09-30T07:00:00Z
date modified: 2026-07-24T01:58:49Z
provider: City University of New York - Graduate Center
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: The Graduate School and University Center of The City University of New York