Title: DO ROLE MODELS INCREASE STUDENT HOPE AND EFFORT? EVIDENCE FROM INDIA

Abstract:

This paper offers experimental evidence on the significance of role models on fostering hope, increasing effort and improving the academic performance of primary school students in India. Students from private schools in Jaipur were randomised at an individual level to a treatment or a placebo group. Treated students watch a short film produced in Jaipur, as a part of the experiment. The placebo group students watch a television show for kids, ‘Malgudi Days’. This intervention increases student hope by 0.17 standard deviation (s.d.) and effort by 0.26 s.d. Along with hope, I find significant improvements in students’ self-efficacy or optimism and happiness that are sustained in the medium run. While learning outcomes do not change immediately, the one-off treatment leads to a 0.16 s.d. increase on standardised test scores in English, six-weeks after the intervention with no effect on Mathematics. A cost-effectiveness analysis highlights role models as a promising intervention tool that can have an effect on student motivation and their learning outcomes.

Title:Buying Opinions

 Abstract: A principal hires an agent to acquire soft information about an unknown state. Even though neither how the agent learns (the experiment chosen by the agent) nor what the agent discovers (the realization of the experiment) are contractible, the principal is unconstrained as to what information the agent can be induced to acquire and report honestly. When the agent is risk neutral, and a) is not asked to learn too much, b) can acquire information sufficiently cheaply, or c) can face sufficiently large penalties, the principal can attain the first-best outcome. Risk aversion (by the agent) introduces inefficiencies: the first-best is unattainable, though whether the agent obtains rents depends on whether he may exit to take his outside option after learning.