Job Market Paper
"Paying for Lack of Performance? Effects of Principal Incentive Pay on Students and Teachers"
Abstract: School principals play a central role in managing teachers and shaping student learning, yet their compensation is typically based on experience rather than performance. This paper studies the effects of principal incentive pay within schools, and its implications for principal effort, teacher effectiveness, and student test scores. To do so, I leverage statewide implementation of incentive pay for principals in North Carolina (NC). Using administrative panel data in NC and Georgia and several difference-in-differences techniques, I estimate the causal effects of principal incentive pay on student test scores. I find that this particular incentive pay design induced significant declines in student outcomes, reducing reading and math test scores by 0.12-0.15 and 0.13-0.16 standard deviations (SD), respectively. To understand these counterintuitive results, I first estimate latent principal effort along four dimensions using teacher survey responses to analyze the effect of incentive pay on principals. Second, I estimate teacher effectiveness measured as test score value-added pre- and post-salary reform, and then I relate teacher effectiveness to principal effort and characteristics. I find that principal effort toward administrative tasks and teacher professional development declines after the incentive pay scheme was introduced by 0.05-0.10 SD, with no effect on instructional support. Teacher effectiveness declines by 0.05 SD in math and 0.01 SD in reading, with reduced principal effort toward administration driving this decline. My results suggest that incentive pay induced principals to reduce effort on margins to which teachers respond. Finally, I discuss how the design of the incentive scheme may have reduced its effectiveness.
Working Papers
"Peer Suspension Effects on Student Misbehavior"
(with Margaux Luflade and Maria Zhu)
Abstract: School suspensions are a widely debated disciplinary tool, yet evidence on their effectiveness remains mixed. While most discussion focuses on the suspended students themselves, suspensions may also generate spillover effects on peers' behavior. This paper uses administrative data from North Carolina public schools, including detailed disciplinary records, to estimate the impact of peers' misbehavior and suspensions on a student's subsequent misbehavior. We construct peer networks based on shared disciplinary infractions in prior periods and estimate a fixed effects model that exploits temporal variation in peers' infractions to identify the causal effects of peer misbehavior and suspensions on future student behavior. We find that exposure to peer misbehavior not resulting in suspension increases a student's propensity of misbehaving in the subsequent two-week period by 8–9 percent, and that peer suspensions do not mitigate this effect, indicating no evidence of a deterrent effect of peer suspensions.
Work In Progress
"The Impact of Workplace Harassment on the Occupational Outcomes of Women: A Structural Approach to an Equilibrium Problem"
(with Ornella Darova)
Abstract: This paper investigates the impact of workplace harassment on various occupational outcomes, utilizing a novel empirical approach that combines reduced-form strategies with a structural equilibrium framework. Leveraging the restricted-use Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics (LEHD) database, we exploit sharp thresholds in Title VII coverage and the diffusion of the #MeToo movement to study the effect of workplace harassment on labor supply. We employ regression discontinuity designs and event studies to estimate the causal effects of vicarious liability on firm demographics, wage gaps, and employee turnover. We then exploit the findings in a structural model that estimates a job market equilibrium.