I examine teacher preferences using a discrete-choice experiment, which I link to administrative data on teacher effectiveness. I estimate willingness-to-pay for a rich set of compensation elements and working conditions. Highly effective teachers usually have the same preferences as their...

A fundamental question for education policy is whether outcomes-based accountability including comprehensive educator evaluations and a closer relationship between effectiveness and compensation improves the quality of instruction and raises achievement. We use synthetic control methods to study...

Efforts to attract and retain effective educators in high poverty public schools have had limited success. Dallas ISD addressed this challenge by using information produced by its evaluation and compensation reforms as the basis for effectiveness-adjusted payments that provided large...

Perceived shortcomings in the quality of American education at the elementary and secondary school levels have drawn much public attention recently. In particular, concern with the composition of the teacher force has been prominent. Informed assessment of the various proposals for increasing...

I analyze changes in teacher turnover, hiring, effectiveness, and salaries at traditional public schools after the opening of a nearby charter school. While I find small effects on turnover overall, difficult to staff schools (low-income, high-minority share) hired fewer new teachers and...

This paper examines the impacts of work experience acquired while youth were in high school (and college) on young men's wage rates during the 1980s and 1990s. Previous studies have found evidence of sizeable and persistent rates of return to working while enrolled in school, especially high...

Among college graduates, teachers have both low average AFQT and high average risk aversion, perhaps because the compression of earnings within teaching attracts relatively risk-averse individuals. Using a dynamic optimization model with unobserved heterogeneity, we show that were it possible to...

If consumption and non-wage amenities of work enter utility, holding few assets may induce a trade-off between wages and amenities when searching for a job. We establish this in a model of search with asset accumulation, extended to accommodate amenities. We then provide empirical evidence of...

Violence in and around schools has drawn increasing attention lately from both the public and policy makers. Despite the importance of the problem, however, research on this topic has been limited. In this paper I analyze how local violence affects high school graduation, college attendance, and...

This paper uses new data to study school management and productivity in India. We report four main results. First, management quality in public schools is low, and ~2σ below high-income countries with comparable data. Second, private schools have higher management quality, driven by much...