IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iae/iaewps/wp2020n01.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Parents' Responses to Teacher Qualifications

Author

Listed:
  • Simon Chang

    (The University of Western Australia)

  • Deborah A. Cobb-Clark

    (The University of Sydney)

  • Nicolás Salamanca

    (Melbourne Institute: Applied Economic & Social Research,The University of Melbourne ARC Centre of Excellence for Children and Families over the Life Course Institute of Labor Economics (IZA))

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.

Suggested Citation

  • Simon Chang & Deborah A. Cobb-Clark & Nicolás Salamanca, 2020. "Parents' Responses to Teacher Qualifications," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2020n01, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    • Handle: RePEc:iae:iaewps:wp2020n01
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://melbourneinstitute.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/3325605/wp2020n01.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Steven G. Rivkin & Eric A. Hanushek & John F. Kain, 2005. "Teachers, Schools, and Academic Achievement," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 73(2), pages 417-458, March.
    2. Jan Feld & Nicolás Salamanca & Ulf Zölitz, 2020. "Are Professors Worth It? The Value-Added and Costs of Tutorial Instructors," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 55(3), pages 836-863.
    3. Berniell, Inés & Estrada, Ricardo, 2020. "Poor little children: The socioeconomic gap in parental responses to school disadvantage," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    4. James J. Heckman & Rodrigo Pinto, 2015. "Econometric Mediation Analyses: Identifying the Sources of Treatment Effects from Experimentally Estimated Production Technologies with Unmeasured and Mismeasured Inputs," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(1-2), pages 6-31, February.
    5. Peter Fredriksson & Björn Öckert & Hessel Oosterbeek, 2013. "Long-Term Effects of Class Size," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 128(1), pages 249-285.
    6. Harris, Douglas N. & Sass, Tim R., 2011. "Teacher training, teacher quality and student achievement," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7-8), pages 798-812, August.
    7. Leonard Goff & Ofer Malamud & Cristian Pop-Eleches & Miguel Urquiola, 2016. "Interactions Between Family and School Environments: Evidence on Dynamic Complementarities?," NBER Working Papers 22112, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Becker, Gary S & Tomes, Nigel, 1976. "Child Endowments and the Quantity and Quality of Children," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 84(4), pages 143-162, August.
    9. Matthias Doepke & Giuseppe Sorrenti & Fabrizio Zilibotti, 2019. "The Economics of Parenting," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 11(1), pages 55-84, August.
    10. Uri Gneezy & Stephan Meier & Pedro Rey-Biel, 2011. "When and Why Incentives (Don't) Work to Modify Behavior," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 25(4), pages 191-210, Fall.
    11. Croninger, Robert G. & Rice, Jennifer King & Rathbun, Amy & Nishio, Masako, 2007. "Teacher qualifications and early learning: Effects of certification, degree, and experience on first-grade student achievement," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 312-324, June.
    12. Facundo Albornoz & Samuel Berlinski & Antonio Cabrales, 2018. "Motivation, resources, and the organization of the school system," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 16(1), pages 199-231.
    13. Flavio Cunha & James J. Heckman, 2009. "The Economics and Psychology of Inequality and Human DEvelopment," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 7(2-3), pages 320-364, 04-05.
    14. Biroli, Pietro & Boneva, Teodora & Raja, Akash & Rauh, Christopher, 2022. "Parental beliefs about returns to child health investments," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 231(1), pages 33-57.
    15. Erik Hanushek & F. Welch (ed.), 2006. "Handbook of the Economics of Education," Handbook of the Economics of Education, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 1, June.
    16. Deborah A. Cobb-Clark & Nicolás Salamanca & Anna Zhu, 2019. "Parenting style as an investment in human development," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 32(4), pages 1315-1352, October.
    17. Wolff, Francois-Charles & Laferrere, Anne, 2006. "Microeconomic models of family transfers," Handbook on the Economics of Giving, Reciprocity and Altruism, in: S. Kolm & Jean Mercier Ythier (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Giving, Altruism and Reciprocity, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 13, pages 889-969, Elsevier.
    18. Jishnu Das & Stefan Dercon & James Habyarimana & Pramila Krishnan & Karthik Muralidharan & Venkatesh Sundararaman, 2013. "School Inputs, Household Substitution, and Test Scores," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 29-57, April.
    19. Alessandro Lizzeri & Marciano Siniscalchi, 2008. "Parental Guidance and Supervised Learning," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(3), pages 1161-1195.
    20. Johan Coenen & Ilja Cornelisz & Wim Groot & Henriette Maassen van den Brink & Chris Van Klaveren, 2018. "Teacher Characteristics And Their Effects On Student Test Scores: A Systematic Review," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(3), pages 848-877, July.
    21. Nicoletti, Cheti & Tonei, Valentina, 2020. "Do parental time investments react to changes in child’s skills and health?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    22. Alan B. Krueger, 2003. "Economic Considerations and Class Size," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(485), pages 34-63, February.
    23. Zhuan Pei & Jörn-Steffen Pischke & Hannes Schwandt, 2019. "Poorly Measured Confounders are More Useful on the Left than on the Right," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(2), pages 205-216, April.
    24. Datar, Ashlesha & Mason, Bryce, 2008. "Do reductions in class size "crowd out" parental investment in education?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 27(6), pages 712-723, December.
    25. Damian Clarke & Joseph P. Romano & Michael Wolf, 2020. "The Romano–Wolf multiple-hypothesis correction in Stata," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 20(4), pages 812-843, December.
    26. Hanushek, Eric A., 2011. "The economic value of higher teacher quality," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 466-479, June.
    27. Orazio Attanasio & Teodora Boneva & Christopher Rauh, 2022. "Parental Beliefs about Returns to Different Types of Investments in School Children," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 57(6), pages 1789-1825.
    28. Joseph Price, 2008. "Parent-Child Quality Time: Does Birth Order Matter?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 43(1).
    29. Andrew J. Houtenville & Karen Smith Conway, 2008. "Parental Effort, School Resources, and Student Achievement," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 43(2), pages 437-453.
    30. Shelly Lundberg & Jennifer Romich & Kwok Tsang, 2009. "Decision-making by children," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 7(1), pages 1-30, March.
    31. Erik Hanushek & F. Welch (ed.), 2006. "Handbook of the Economics of Education," Handbook of the Economics of Education, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 2, number 2, June.
    32. Charles T. Clotfelter & Helen F. Ladd & Jacob L. Vigdor, 2010. "Teacher Credentials and Student Achievement in High School: A Cross-Subject Analysis with Student Fixed Effects," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 45(3).
    33. Gianni De Fraja & Tania Oliveira & Luisa Zanchi, 2010. "Must Try Harder: Evaluating the Role of Effort in Educational Attainment," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(3), pages 577-597, August.
    34. Clotfelter, Charles T. & Ladd, Helen F. & Vigdor, Jacob L., 2007. "Teacher credentials and student achievement: Longitudinal analysis with student fixed effects," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 673-682, December.
    35. Peter Fredriksson & Björn Öckert & Hessel Oosterbeek, 2016. "Parental Responses to Public Investments in Children: Evidence from a Maximum Class Size Rule," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 51(4), pages 832-868.
    36. Douglas L. Miller & Na’ama Shenhav & Michel Grosz, 2023. "Selection into Identification in Fixed Effects Models, with Application to Head Start," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 58(5), pages 1523-1566.
    37. Teodora Boneva & Christopher Rauh, 2018. "Parental Beliefs about Returns to Educational Investments—The Later the Better?," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 16(6), pages 1669-1711.
    38. Orazio Attanasio & Flávio Cunha & Pamela Jervis, 2019. "Subjective Parental Beliefs: Their Measurement and Role," NBER Working Papers 26516, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    39. Peter Burton & Shelley Phipps & Lori Curtis, 2002. "All in the Family: A Simultaneous Model of Parenting Style and Child Conduct," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(2), pages 368-372, May.
    40. Rebecca Dizon-Ross, 2019. "Parents' Beliefs about Their Children's Academic Ability: Implications for Educational Investments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(8), pages 2728-2765, August.
    41. Lingxin Hao & V.Joseph Hotz & GingerZ. Jin, 2008. "Games Parents and Adolescents Play: Risky Behaviour, Parental Reputation and Strategic Transfers," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(528), pages 515-555, April.
    42. Felipe Barrera-Osorio & Paul Gertler & Nozomi Nakajima & Harry Patrinos, 2020. "Promoting Parental Involvement in Schools: Evidence From Two Randomized Experiments," NBER Working Papers 28040, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    43. Julie Berry Cullen & Brian A Jacob & Steven Levitt, 2006. "The Effect of School Choice on Participants: Evidence from Randomized Lotteries," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(5), pages 1191-1230, September.
    44. Junjian Yi & James J. Heckman & Junsen Zhang & Gabriella Conti, 2015. "Early Health Shocks, Intra†household Resource Allocation and Child Outcomes," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 125(588), pages 347-371, November.
    45. Petra E. Todd & Kenneth I. Wolpin, 2003. "On The Specification and Estimation of The Production Function for Cognitive Achievement," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(485), pages 3-33, February.
    46. repec:oup:qjecon:v:128:y:2012:i:1:p:249-285 is not listed on IDEAS
    47. Gelber, Alexander & Isen, Adam, 2013. "Children's schooling and parents' behavior: Evidence from the Head Start Impact Study," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 25-38.
    48. Bray, Mark & Zhan, Shengli & Lykins, Chad & Wang, Dan & Kwo, Ora, 2014. "Differentiated demand for private supplementary tutoring: Patterns and implications in Hong Kong secondary education," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 24-37.
    49. Eric A. Hanushek, 2003. "The Failure of Input-Based Schooling Policies," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(485), pages 64-98, February.
    50. Chao Fu & Nirav Mehta, 2018. "Ability Tracking, School and Parental Effort, and Student Achievement: A Structural Model and Estimation," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 36(4), pages 923-979.
    51. Cristian Pop-Eleches & Miguel Urquiola, 2013. "Going to a Better School: Effects and Behavioral Responses," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(4), pages 1289-1324, June.
    52. Hsi-Sheng Wei & Ji-Kang Chen, 2010. "School Attachment Among Taiwanese Adolescents: The Roles of Individual Characteristics, Peer Relationships, and Teacher Well-Being," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 95(3), pages 421-436, February.
    53. Michael Kosfeld & Armin Falk, 2006. "The Hidden Costs of Control," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1611-1630, December.
    54. Junyan Liu & Mark Bray, 2017. "Determinants of demand for private supplementary tutoring in China: findings from a national survey," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(2), pages 205-218, March.
    55. Bruce A. Weinberg, 2001. "An Incentive Model of the Effect of Parental Income on Children," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(2), pages 266-280, April.
    56. Flavio Cunha & James J. Heckman, 2009. "The Economics & Psychology of Inequality and Human Development," Working Papers 200905, Geary Institute, University College Dublin.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Guilherme Lichand & Sharon Wolf, 2020. "Arm-wrestling in the classroom: the non-monotonic effects of monitoring teachers," ECON - Working Papers 357, Department of Economics - University of Zurich, revised Feb 2021.
    2. Miriam Gensowski & Rasmus Landersø & Philip Dale & Anders Højen & Laura Justice & Dorthe Bleses, 2024. "Public and Parental Investments and Children’s Skill Formation," Working Papers 2024-011, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    3. Deborah A. Cobb-Clark & Tiffany Ho & Nicolás Salamanca, 2021. "Parental Responses to Children’s Achievement Test Results," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2021n17, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    4. Gensowski, Miriam & Landersø, Rasmus & Dale, Philip & Hojen, Anders & Justice, Laura & Bleses, Dorthe, 2024. "Public and Parental Investments, and Children's Skill Formation," IZA Discussion Papers 16956, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    5. Alexandra de Gendre & Nicolás Salamanca, 2020. "On the Mechanisms of Ability Peer Effects," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2020n19, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    6. Miriam Gensowski & Miriam Gensowski & Philip Dale & Anders Hojen & Laura Justice & Dorthe Bleses, 2024. "Public and Parental Investments, and Children’s Skill Formation," RF Berlin - CReAM Discussion Paper Series 2411, Rockwool Foundation Berlin (RF Berlin) - Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cobb-Clark, Deborah A. & Ho, Tiffany & Salamanca, Nicolás, 2021. "Parental Responses to Children's Achievement Test Results," IZA Discussion Papers 14663, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Beam, Emily A. & Mukherjee, Priya & Navarro-Sola, Laia, 2022. "Lowering Barriers to Remote Education: Experimental Impacts on Parental Responses and Learning," IZA Discussion Papers 15596, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Marine de Talancé, 2015. "Better Teachers, Better Results? Evidence from Rural Pakistan," Working Papers DT/2015/21, DIAL (Développement, Institutions et Mondialisation).
    4. Suzane Bellue, 2023. "Why Don’t Poor Families Move? A Spatial Equilibirum Analysis of Parental Decisions with Social Learning," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2023_472, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    5. Birgitta Rabe, 2019. "Do school inputs crowd out parents’ investments in their children?," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 460-460, May.
    6. Deborah A. Cobb-Clark & Nicolás Salamanca & Anna Zhu, 2019. "Parenting style as an investment in human development," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 32(4), pages 1315-1352, October.
    7. Figlio, D. & Karbownik, K. & Salvanes, K.G., 2016. "Education Research and Administrative Data," Handbook of the Economics of Education,, Elsevier.
    8. Bernal, Pedro & Mittag, Nikolas & Qureshi, Javaeria A., 2016. "Estimating effects of school quality using multiple proxies," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 1-10.
    9. Wang, Haining & Cheng, Zhiming & Smyth, Russell, 2022. "Parental misbeliefs and household investment in children's education," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    10. Bobby W. Chung & Jian Zou, 2023. "Understanding spillover of peer parental education: Randomization evidence and mechanisms," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 61(3), pages 496-522, July.
    11. Francesconi, Marco & Heckman, James J, 2015. "Symposium on Child Development and Parental Investment: Introduction," Economics Discussion Papers 16868, University of Essex, Department of Economics.
    12. Andrew Agopsowicz & Chris Robinson & Ralph Stinebrickner & Todd Stinebrickner, 2020. "Careers and Mismatch for College Graduates: College and Noncollege Jobs," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 55(4), pages 1194-1221.
    13. Jose Maria Cabrera & Dinand Webbink, 2020. "Do Higher Salaries Yield Better Teachers and Better Student Outcomes?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 55(4), pages 1222-1257.
    14. de Gendre, Alexandra & Salamanca, Nicolás, 2020. "On the Mechanisms of Ability Peer Effects," IZA Discussion Papers 13938, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    15. Sancassani, Pietro, 2023. "The effect of teacher subject-specific qualifications on student science achievement," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    16. Kautz, Tim & Heckman, James J. & Diris, Ron & ter Weel, Bas & Borghans, Lex, 2014. "Fostering and Measuring Skills: Improving Cognitive and Non-Cognitive Skills to Promote Lifetime Success," IZA Discussion Papers 8696, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Naven, Matthew, 2019. "Human-Capital Formation During Childhood and Adolescence: Evidence from School Quality and Postsecondary Success in California," MPRA Paper 97716, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Atsushi Inoue & Ryuichi Tanaka, 2023. "Do teachers’ college majors affect students’ academic achievement in the sciences? A cross-subfields analysis with student-teacher fixed effects," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(5), pages 617-631, September.
    19. Haelermans, Carla & De Witte, Kristof, 2012. "The role of innovations in secondary school performance – Evidence from a conditional efficiency model," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 223(2), pages 541-549.
    20. Fredriksson, Peter & Öckert, Björn & Oosterbeek, Hessel, 2014. "Inside the Black Box of Class Size: Mechanisms, Behavioral Responses, and Social Background," IZA Discussion Papers 8019, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Teacher quality; Student achievement; Parental investment; Beliefs; School effort;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D10 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - General
    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • I24 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Inequality

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iae:iaewps:wp2020n01. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sheri Carnegie (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/mimelau.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.