Monetary grants as public policy in education: evidence from "sscola nota dez" prize in Brazil

Abstract

We apply a regression discontinuity design to estimate the causal effects of offering monetary grants conditional on the school’s achievements. We use the evidence of 5th-grade elementary schools that received extra resources for the 2013 edition of the Escola Nota Dez prize, program implemented in the Brazilian state Ceará that yearly gives monetary grants to the best schools and worst public schools according to their rank in a standardized index. Although the atmosphere of competition and motivation created by the prize may impact positively the whole Ceará’s school network, as demonstrated by previous papers, our results indicate that the extra money offered as award and support is not effective to improve schools’ proficiencies in state and national evaluations when compared to other schools in Ceará.