Teacher Incentives and Student Achievement: Evidence from an Advancement Program

This paper examines the effects of a comprehensive performance pay program implemented in high‐need schools using administrative data from Louisiana. Exploiting the within‐student variation in the timing of implementation, we find a large and significant effect beginning with the second year of the program on math achievement. Similar but generally insignificant point estimates are observed in social studies. As for English Language Arts and science, there are no effects of the program. We provide evidence against changes in the composition of teacher workforce and postadoption student sorting as potential explanations for our results. We then show aggregate findings from a web‐survey that teachers may have altered their teaching practices following performance‐based compensation. Finally, under certain assumptions, we calculate the net present value of earnings impact to be close to a million dollars per school‐year for math.     

The village institutes of Turkey

Persia and the Defence of India, 1884–1892. By R. L. Greaves. The University of London. The Athlone Press. 1959. Pp. 301; 5 maps; index. 42s.

The Springing Tiger. A Study of a Revolutionary. By Hugh Toye. Cassell. Pp. 184. Appendices; plates; maps and indices. Foreward by Philip Mason. 25s.

Orde Wingate. By Christopher Sykes. Collins. Pp. 546; maps; plates and index. 35s‐

Ahmad Shah Durrani. By Sardar Ganda Singh. Asia Publishing House. Pp. 457; maps; illustrations; appendixes and index.

Political Leadership among the Swat Pathans. By Fredrik Barth. The Athlone Press. Pp. 143 and index. 25s.

A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar. By K. A. Nilakanta Sastri, M.A. Second Edition. O.U.P. 1958.

Pilot Project, India: The Story of Rural Development at Etawah, Uttar Pradesh. By Albert Mayer and Associates in collaboration with McKim Marriott and Richard L. Park. With a Foreword by Pandit Govind Ballabh Pant, Home Minister, Government of India. University of California Press. 1958.

The Heart of India. By Alexander Campbell. Constable. 18s. 6d.

The Yellow Wind. An excursion in and around Red China with a traveller in the Yellow Wind. By William Stevenson. Cassell, London. Pp. 368. 111.; map. 30s. net.

The Economic Growth of Hong Kong. By Edward Szczepanik. Oxford University Press for the Royal Institute of International Affairs. 1958. Pp. 186. Charts; tables; map. 25s.

Missionaries, Chinese and Diplomats. The American Protestant Missionary Movement in China (1890–1952). By Paul A. Varg. Princeton University Press.

Buddhist Cave Paintings at Tun‐Huang. By Basil Gray and John B. Vincent. Published by Faber and Faber, Ltd., at £6 6s.

Britain and the Arabs. A Study of 50 Years, 1908–1958. By Lieutenant‐General Sir John Bagot Glubb, K.C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O., O.B.E., M.C. Published by Hodder and Stoughton. 30s.

St. Antony's Papers No. 4. Middle Eastern Affairs, No. 1. Chatto and Windus. 1958. Pp. 141. 16s.

The Reconstruction of Iraq: 1950–57. By Fabian I. Qubain. Foreign Policy Research Institute. Series No. 6. University of Pennsylvania, U.S.A. Atlantic Books, London. Pp. 276; index. 35s.

Nuri as‐Said: A Study in Arab Leadership. By Lord Birdwood, M.V.O. Cassell, London. Pp. 306. 30s.

The Arab Federalists of the Ottoman Empire. By Hassan Saab. Pp. xii‐f 322. Biblio. Djambatan, Amsterdam. £2 2s.

Turkish Nationalism and Western Civilization. Selected Essays of Ziya Gokalp. Translated and edited with an introduction by Niyazi Berkes. London. 1959. Pp. 336. 35s.

Rivers and Man. By Robert Brittain. Published by Longmans. Pp. 288. Index; ill.; map. 21s.

Babylon. By Albert Champdor. Translated from the French and adapted by Elsa Coult. London Elek Books. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York. Pp. 184 Index; ill. 30s.

Armed Diplomat. By Brigadier J. V. Davidson‐Houston. Published at 21s. by Robert Hale, Ltd.

Smelling the Breezes. A journey through the High Lebanon. By Ralph and Molly Izzard. Hodder and Stoughton. 8J"x5i”. 1959. Pp.253. Map; 24 illustrations. 18s. net.

Elephant Kingdom. By H. N. Marshall. Robert Hale. 1959. 8f"x5t”. Pp.190. 21 illustrations; index. 18s. net.

Beds in the East. By Anthony Burgess. Heinemann. 1959. 8” x 5I”. Pp. 237. 15s. net.

The Kurds and their Country. A History of the Kurdish People from the Earliest Times to the Present. By Major Sheikh A. Waheed. Lahore: University Book Agency, 2nd edition. 1958. Pp. 190. Sketch map. 6 Rupees.

Khirbat al Mafjar. An Arabian Mansion in the Jordan Valley. By R. W. Hamilton. With a Contribution by Dr. Oleg Grabar. Palestine Archaeological Museum. Clarendon Press. Oxford University Press. Pp. 350. Illus.—9 in colour. 8 guineas.

No Friends for Travellers. By A. J. Wightman. Robert Hale, Ltd., London. 16s. net.

India and Modern Art. By W. G. Archer. George Allen and Unwin, London. Pp. 143; 61 plates, index. 35s. net.

Classical Sinhalese Sculpture, c. 300 b.c. to a.d. i.ooo. By D. T. Devendra. Alec Tiranti, Ltd., London. 1958. Pp. 48, 128 plates, index. 30s. net.

Nehru: A Political Biography. By Michael Brecher. Oxford University Press. 42s.

Indo‐Pakistan Relations 1947–1955. By Dr. Jyoti Bhusan Das Gupta. Djambatan, Amsterdam. 35s.

The Diplomacy of India: Indian Foreign Policy in the United Nations. By Ross N. Berkes and Mohinder S. Bedi. Oxford University Press. 30s.

The Message of Milarepa. By Humphrey Clarke. Wisdom of the East Series. John Murray. Pp. 104. 8s. 6d. net.

Hinduism. By Swami Nikhilananda. Allen and Unwin. Pp. 189. 16s. net.

Tao TS Ching. A translation by Ch'u Ta‐Kao. George Allen and Unwin. 1959. Pp. 95. 10s. 6d.

Lu Hsiin and the New Culture Movement in China. By Dr. Hang Sung K'ang. Djambatan, Amsterdam. 1957. Pp. 158.

Stalin's Failure in China, 1924–1927. By Conrad Brandt. Harvard University Press and O.U.P. 1958. Pp. 224. Index and bibliography. 25s.

The Wisdom of Lao Tse. Pp. 237. 21s.

The Wisdom of Confucius. Translated and edited by Lin Yutang. Michael Joseph. 1958. Pp. 302. 21s.

Accounts of Western Nations in the History of the Northern Chou Dynasty. Translated and annotated by Roy Andrew Miller. University of California Press. 1959. Pp. 84.

Documents on International Affairs, 1956. Selected, edited and introduced by Noble Frankland. Oxford University Press; issued under the auspices of the Royal Institute of International Affairs. Pp. 768. 84s.

Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines or Seven Boo\s of Wisdom of the Great Path according to the late Lama Kazi Dawa‐Samdup's English rendering. Arranged and edited with Introductions and Annotations to serve as a commentary, by W. Y. Evans‐Wentz. With forward by Dr. R. R. Marett and Yogic Commentary by Translator‐Professor Chen‐chi Chang. Oxford University Press, 2nd edition. 1958. Pp. xlii + 389. 9 illustrations. Price 42s. net.

The Doctrine of the Buddha. By George Grimm. Geo. Allen and Unwin. Pp. 536. 42s.

Call to Istanbul. By Constance E. Padwick. Longmans. 1958. Pp. 209. Five illustrations. 16s. 6d.

The Siege of Peking. By Peter Fleming. Rupert Hart Davis. Pp. 273; index; ill.; 25s.

Archaeological Discoveries in South Arabia. By Richard leBaron Bowen Jnr., Frank P. Albright and others. American Foundation for the Study of Man. Baltimore, the John Hopkins Press. 1958. Pp. 315. $10.00.

Archaeology and the Old Testament. By James B. Pritchard. London: Oxford University Press. Princeton University Press, N.J. Pp. xvi + 263. 77 illustrations. 30s.

All Things Made New. By John Ferraby. George Allen and Unwin. 30s.     

Fatal blunt trauma of the larynx in a child

We report an autopsy case of an 11-year-old girl who suffered mechanical asphyxia from falling off the metal bars in the playground. This autopsy case is interesting because of the atypical trauma and lesions. To our knowledge there has been no similiar published case reports in the forensic literature. The young age of the victim, the setting and the pattern of the injuries are rare in a fall at playground by a child.     

What Do Right‐to‐Work Laws Do? Evidence from a Synthetic Control Method Analysis

Using the case study of Oklahoma and a recently developed econometric technique, we examine the impact of right‐to‐work (RTW) laws on state‐level labor market outcomes. Our results show that the passage of RTW laws in Oklahoma decreased private sector unionization rates. Several other state outcomes including total employment rate and private sector average wages, on the other hand, were not affected by RTW laws. The findings for the private sector generally carry over to the manufacturing sector.     

The Central Asian muftiate in occupied Afghanistan, 1979–87

Known by the Russian acronym SADUM, the muftiate responsible for overseeing mosques in the five Soviet Central Asian republics conducted pro-Soviet public diplomacy in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan after the invasion of December 1979. SADUM's engagement with pro-Soviet ulama in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan marks a departure from the character of its extensive propaganda and relationship-building activities elsewhere in the Muslim and developing worlds. The Central Asian Islamic scholars staffing SADUM sought to assist the Soviet Party-state in establishing and consolidating a cadre of Afghan ulama who could achieve legitimacy in the eyes of Afghanistan's overwhelmingly Muslim population while maintaining political support for the Communist-oriented People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan.