Parents' Responses to Teacher Qualifications

53 Pages Posted: 30 Mar 2020 Last revised: 16 Apr 2023

See all articles by Simon Chang

Simon Chang

University of Western Australia - Department of Economics; IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Deborah A. Cobb-Clark

School of Economics, University of Sydney; IZA Institute of Labor Economics

Nicolas Salamanca

Melbourne Institute: Applied Economic & Social Research, the University of Melbourne; IZA; University of Melbourne - ARC Centre of Excellence for Children and Families over the Life Course

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Abstract

We identify the causal effect of teacher qualifications on parents' investments in their children. Exploiting a unique, high-stakes educational setting in which teachers are randomly assigned to classes, we show that parents react to more qualified teachers by increasing their financial investments in their children. The key mechanism is an increase in parents' belief that academic achievement is driven by student effort—for which financial investment is instrumental. However, higher teacher qualifications do not improve student test scores. This is likely due to a negative effect of teacher qualifications on students' belief in the importance of effort for academic achievement. Our findings uncover various family-wide behavioral reactions to teacher qualifications and highlight the intricacies in educational production within households.

Keywords: school effort, teacher quality, student achievement, parental investment, beliefs

JEL Classification: D10, I21, I24

Suggested Citation

Chang, Kang-Hung and Cobb-Clark, Deborah A. and Salamanca, Nicolas, Parents' Responses to Teacher Qualifications. IZA Discussion Paper No. 13065, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3562855 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3562855

Kang-Hung Chang (Contact Author)

University of Western Australia - Department of Economics ( email )

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Crawley, Western Australia 6009
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+61-8-64882893 (Phone)

IZA Institute of Labor Economics ( email )

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Deborah A. Cobb-Clark

School of Economics, University of Sydney ( email )

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The University of Sydney
Sydney, NSW 2006
Australia
61435061387 (Phone)

IZA Institute of Labor Economics

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

Nicolas Salamanca

Melbourne Institute: Applied Economic & Social Research, the University of Melbourne ( email )

Level 5, FBE Building, 111 Barry Street
Parkville, Victoria 3010
Australia

IZA ( email )

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

University of Melbourne - ARC Centre of Excellence for Children and Families over the Life Course ( email )

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