Using a dataset covering over 10,000 Australian school teachers and over 90,000 pupils, I estimate how effective teachers are in raising students' test scores. Since the exams are biennial, it is necessary to take account of the teacher's work in the intervening year. Even adjusting for...

Can changes in teacher pay encourage more able individuals to enter the teaching profession? So far, studies of the impact of pay on the aptitude distribution of teachers have provided mixed evidence on the extent to which altering teacher salaries represents a feasible solution to the teacher...

This paper investigates the relationship between non-parental care and toddlers’ behavioral outcomes using data from Australia. In particular, we explore heterogeneity in the relationship using the unique data on quality attributes: carer/child ratio, share of qualified staff, and expert...

How much do returns to education differ across different natural experiment methods? To test this, we estimate the rate of return to schooling in Australia using two different instruments for schooling: month of birth and changes in compulsory schooling laws. With annual pre-tax income as our...