The Value of Smarter Teachers: International Evidence on Teacher Cognitive Skills and Student Performance

Eric Hanushek, Marc Piopiunik () and Simon Wiederhold ()

Discussion Papers in Economics from University of Munich, Department of Economics

Abstract: Differences in teacher quality are commonly cited as a key determinant of the huge international student performance gaps. However, convincing evidence on this relationship is still lacking, in part because it is unclear how to measure teacher quality consistently across countries. We use unique international assessment data to investigate the role of teacher cognitive skills as one main dimension of teacher quality in explaining student outcomes. Our main identification strategy exploits exogenous variation in teacher cognitive skills attributable to international differences in relative wages of nonteacher public sector employees. Using student-level test score data, we find that teacher cognitive skills are an important determinant of international differences in student performance. Results are supported by fixed-effects estimation that uses within-country between-subject variation in teacher skills.

Keywords: teacher cognitive skills; student performance; instrumental variable; PIAAC; PISA (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H40 H52 I20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-hrm and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (30)

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Related works:
Journal Article: The Value of Smarter Teachers: International Evidence on Teacher Cognitive Skills and Student Performance (2019)
Working Paper: The Value of Smarter Teachers: International Evidence on Teacher Cognitive Skills and Student Performance (2014)
Working Paper: The Value of Smarter Teachers: International Evidence on Teacher Cognitive Skills and Student Performance (2014)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:lmu:muenec:22032

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