Discretionary Hiring and Inequality: Evidence from School Principals
The DEMS Economics Seminar series is proud to host
Gianmarco León-Ciliotta
(Universitat Pompeu Fabra)
joint work with Matteo Bobba, Tim Ederer, Christopher A. Neilson, and Marco Nieddu
ABSTRACT:
We exploit rich administrative data on the centralized teacher recruitment drive in Peru to quantify how school principals’ hiring decisions shape the distribution of student achievement. Discretionary hiring selects slightly higher value-added teachers than test-based hiring, on average, but remains largely misaligned with the objective of maximizing student achievement. We find that these aggregate patterns hide substantial heterogeneity that we quantify using a flexible model of principals’ ranking behavior. Heterogeneity in hiring practices generates a standard deviation of 0.16σ in the value-added of selected teachers, indicating that discretionary hiring largely contributes to inequality in student achievement.
The seminar will be in presence, Room: 4096 - Building U7