Teacher Compensation and Structural Inequality: Evidence from Centralized Teacher School Choice in Peru

Matteo Bobba, Tim Ederer, Gianmarco Leon-Ciliotta, Christopher Neilson and Marco Nieddu ()

No 16386, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: We exploit data on centralized teacher recruitment in Peru to establish that wage rigidity creates large urban-rural disparities in teacher effectiveness. Leveraging a teacher compensation reform, we provide causal evidence that increasing salaries in less desirable locations attracts qualified teachers and improves student learning. We estimate a model of teacher sorting and student achievement featuring rich heterogeneity in teachers’ preferences and effectiveness. Substantial equity and efficiency gains arise from reallocating existing teachers to exploit match effects or attracting applicants with higher average effectiveness into public teaching. Counterfactual wage schedules achieving these gains suggest that the latter is more cost-effective.

Keywords: Inequality; Teacher school choice; Teacher wages; Matching with contracts (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C93 I21 J31 J45 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-07
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP16386 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Teacher Compensation and Structural Inequality: Evidence from Centralized Teacher School Choice in Peru (2026)
Working Paper: Teacher Compensation and Structural Inequality: Evidence from Centralized Teacher School Choice in Perú (2021)
Working Paper: Teacher Compensation and Structural Inequality: Evidence from Centralized Teacher School Choice in Perú (2021)
Working Paper: Teacher Compensation and Structural Inequality: Evidence from Centralized Teacher School Choice in Perú (2021)
Working Paper: Teacher Compensation and Structural Inequality: Evidence from Centralized Teacher School Choice in Peru (2021)
Working Paper: Teacher compensation and structural inequality: Evidence from centralized teacher school choice in Perú (2021)
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:cpr:ceprdp:16386

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP16386

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CEPR ().