Do-gooders and go-getters: career incentives, selection, and performance in public service delivery

We study how career incentives affect performance in public health jobs through selection. We collaborate with the Government of Zambia to experimentally vary the salience of career incentives when recruiting nationally for a new position and then to offer the same incentives to all recruited agents. Career incentives attract health workers who complete 29% more household visits. This is matched by an increase in institutional deliveries, breastfeeding, immunizations,deworming and a 25% reduction in the share of underweight children. The results show that incentive design at the recruitment stage can have strong impacts on the performance of organizations.

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