I develop a novel method for estimating teacher value added which controls for non-random student-teacher sorting without having to control for lagged grades in standardised tests. To do so, I exploit "networks'' of teachers - teachers from the same subject who are observed in classrooms with a...

Teachers are among the most important inputs in the education production function. One mechanism by which teachers might affect student learning is through the grading standards they set for their classrooms. However, the effects of grading standards on student outcomes are relatively...

This paper assesses the effect of teachers on the gender gap in student test scores. It combines different empirical strategies from the value-added and labor economics literature to estimate teacher value-added and its contribution to the math and reading gender gaps. We use rich administrative...

To contribute to the debate about decentralization of education management, in this paper, we take advantage of the arbitrary rule used in Colombia to define the municipalities that can autonomously manage schools, to evaluate through a Regression Discontinuity methodology the effect of...

The development of pertinent and effective in-service teacher training remains a policy challenge for many countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. Ecuador stands out as a country in the region that has made significant investments in teacher training in the past decade. However, most...