A substantial body of literature has focused on educational attainment and children’s performance to foster human capital. Despite the common goal, there is a debate on how to best approach it (Duflo et al. 2013). While in some studies incentives are effective in changing people’s behavior, by inducing more effort and higher performance, other works point to crowding out of intrinsic motivations and other externalities. This study reports the results of an experiment conducted with children usually working in the streets of Tehran (Iran) on the effectiveness of non-monetary incentives on school attendance and related behaviors. My within-subject design (dictated by severe restrictions in terms of subject pool and harmless of the incentive given how vulnerable the subject pool is) consisting of making ice cream at alternating dates and giving it to all children present that day at the NGO school. The data show significant evidence that the treatment increases the probability of attendance by 13% (p
","abstract_html":"<p>A substantial body of literature has focused on educational attainment and children’s performance to foster human capital. Despite the common goal, there is a debate on how to best approach it (Duflo et al. 2013). While in some studies incentives are effective in changing people’s behavior, by inducing more effort and higher performance, other works point to crowding out of intrinsic motivations and other externalities. This study reports the results of an experiment conducted with children usually working in the streets of Tehran (Iran) on the effectiveness of non-monetary incentives on school attendance and related behaviors. My within-subject design (dictated by severe restrictions in terms of subject pool and harmless of the incentive given how vulnerable the subject pool is) consisting of making ice cream at alternating dates and giving it to all children present that day at the NGO school. The data show significant evidence that the treatment increases the probability of attendance by 13% (p</p>","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Safarha, Elnaz"],"institution":null,"degree_name":"Master of Science in International and Development Economics (MSIDEC)","degree_level":"Thesis","degree_discipline":"Economics","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Alessandra Cassar"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2015,"date_issued":"2015-05-22T07:00:00Z","date_published":"2015-05-22T07:00:00Z","updated_at":"2026-07-24T05:43:04Z","subjects":["Attendance Incentives","Street Working Children","Behavioral Economics","Growth and Development"],"languages":[],"rights":[],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://repository.usfca.edu/thes/137","outbound_label":"Repository record","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Alessandra Cassar"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Safarha, Elnaz"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date.available","label":"Dc Date Available","values":["2015-05-20T07:00:00Z"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Economics"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Master of Science in International and Development Economics (MSIDEC)"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Attendance Incentives","Street Working Children","Behavioral Economics","Growth and Development"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://repository.usfca.edu/thes/137"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["A substantial body of literature has focused on educational attainment and children’s performance to foster human capital. Despite the common goal, there is a debate on how to best approach it (Duflo et al. 2013). While in some studies incentives are effective in changing people’s behavior, by inducing more effort and higher performance, other works point to crowding out of intrinsic motivations and other externalities. This study reports the results of an experiment conducted with children usually working in the streets of Tehran (Iran) on the effectiveness of non-monetary incentives on school attendance and related behaviors. My within-subject design (dictated by severe restrictions in terms of subject pool and harmless of the incentive given how vulnerable the subject pool is) consisting of making ice cream at alternating dates and giving it to all children present that day at the NGO school. The data show significant evidence that the treatment increases the probability of attendance by 13% (p
"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Making Ice Cream in Tehran: A Field Experiment on the Impact of Attendance Incentives for Street Working Children"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Alessandra Cassar"],"dc:creator":["Safarha, Elnaz"],"dc:date.available":["2015-05-20T07:00:00Z"],"dc:description.abstract":["A substantial body of literature has focused on educational attainment and children’s performance to foster human capital. Despite the common goal, there is a debate on how to best approach it (Duflo et al. 2013). While in some studies incentives are effective in changing people’s behavior, by inducing more effort and higher performance, other works point to crowding out of intrinsic motivations and other externalities. This study reports the results of an experiment conducted with children usually working in the streets of Tehran (Iran) on the effectiveness of non-monetary incentives on school attendance and related behaviors. My within-subject design (dictated by severe restrictions in terms of subject pool and harmless of the incentive given how vulnerable the subject pool is) consisting of making ice cream at alternating dates and giving it to all children present that day at the NGO school. The data show significant evidence that the treatment increases the probability of attendance by 13% (p
"],"dc:identifier":["https://repository.usfca.edu/thes/137"],"dc:subject":["Attendance Incentives","Street Working Children","Behavioral Economics","Growth and Development"],"dc:title":["Making Ice Cream in Tehran: A Field Experiment on the Impact of Attendance Incentives for Street Working Children"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Economics"],"thesis:degree_level":["Thesis"],"thesis:degree_name":["Master of Science in International and Development Economics (MSIDEC)"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-24T05:43:04Z"}