TY  - JOUR
AU  - Rothstein,Jesse
TI  - Teacher Quality Policy When Supply Matters
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 18419
PY  - 2012
Y2  - September 2012
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w18419
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w18419.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Jesse Rothstein
Goldman School of Public Policy
and Department of Economics
University of California, Berkeley
2607 Hearst Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94720-7320
Tel: 510/643-8561
Fax: 510/643-9657
E-Mail: rothstein@berkeley.edu
AB  - Recent proposals would strengthen the dependence of teacher pay and retention on performance, in order to attract those who will be effective teachers and repel those who will not. I model the teacher labor market, incorporating dynamic self-selection, noisy performance measurement, and Bayesian learning. Simulations indicate that labor market interactions are important to the evaluation of alternative teacher contracts. Typical bonus policies have very small effects on selection. Firing policies can have larger effects, if accompanied by substantial salary increases. However, misalignment between productivity and measured performance nearly eliminates the benefits while preserving most of the costs.
ER  -