School Boards and Education Production: Evidence from Randomized Ballot Order

Ying Shi and John Singleton

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 2023, vol. 15, issue 1, 438-72

Abstract: We examine the causal influence of educators elected to the school board on local education production. The key empirical challenge is that school board composition is endogenously determined through the electoral process. To overcome this, we develop a novel research design that leverages California's randomized assignment of the order that candidate names appear on election ballots. We find that an additional educator elected to the school board reduces charter schooling and increases teacher salaries in the school district relative to other board members. We interpret these findings as consistent with educator board members shifting bargaining in favor of teachers' unions.

JEL-codes: D72 H75 I21 J31 J45 J51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pol.20200435 (application/pdf)
https://doi.org/10.3886/E157261V1 (text/html)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pol.20200435.appx (application/pdf)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pol.20200435.ds (application/zip)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aea:aejpol:v:15:y:2023:i:1:p:438-72

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

DOI: 10.1257/pol.20200435

Access Statistics for this article

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy is currently edited by Matthew Shapiro

More articles in American Economic Journal: Economic Policy from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().