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  5. Can Financial Incentives to Firms Improve Apprentice Training? Experimental Evidence from Ghana

Can Financial Incentives to Firms Improve Apprentice Training? Experimental Evidence from Ghana

  • Gabriel Brown
  • Morgan Hardy
  • Isaac Mbiti
  • Jamie McCasland
  • Isabelle Salcher
American Economic Review: Insights (Forthcoming)

Abstract

We use a field experiment to test whether financial incentives can improve the quality of apprenticeship training. Trainers (firm owners) in the treatment group participated in a tournament incentive scheme where they received a payment based on their apprentices’ rank-order performance on a skills assessment. Trainers in the control group received a fixed payment based on their apprentices’ participation in the assessment. Performance on the assessment was higher in the treatment group. Two years later, treated apprentices scored 0.15s higher on a low-stakes oral skills test and earned 24% more in total earnings, driven by higher self-employment profits.

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