The Educational Impact of Weakening Teachers’ Unions: Evidence from Wisconsin

Jack Kemp
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Jack Kemp: University of Warwick

Warwick-Monash Economics Student Papers from Warwick Monash Economics Student Papers

Abstract: The impact of teachers’ unions on educational outcomes is theoretically and empirically ambiguous. This study aims to provide additional evidence to this debate by analyzing the educational impact of Wisconsin’s Act 10, which significantly weakened teachers’ unions. A unique school-level dataset is constructed containing data on educational outcomes, high-school and district-level characteristics in Wisconsin and Illinois. Schools in treated and control groups are matched using propensity score matching. A difference-in-difference methodology is used to mitigate problems surrounding simultaneity and omitted variable bias from standard OLS regression. This paper uses an event study design and a triple difference model to estimate the effect of Act 10 on the dropout rate and subject proficiency rate. The triple difference model used has lower power but is more robust to the parallel trends assumption as it takes into account differences in economic conditions between states. Models suggest that weakening teachers’ unions worsens educational outcomes, providing support for the union-voice hypothesis.

Keywords: Education; Teacher unions; Event study; Triple difference; Propensity score matching JEL Classification: I20; I28; J45; J50 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ure
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wrk:wrkesp:39

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