DP10283 The academic and labor market returns of university professors

Author(s):	Michela Braga, Marco Paccagnella, Michele Pellizzari
Publication Date:	December 2014
Keyword(s):	higher education, teacher quality
JEL(s):	I20, M55
Programme Areas:	Labour Economics
Link to this Page:	cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=10283

This paper estimates the impact of college teaching on students' academic achievement and labor market outcomes using administrative data from Bocconi University matched with Italian tax records. The estimation exploits the random allocation of students to teachers in a fixed sequence of compulsory courses. We find that the academic and labor market returns of teachers are only mildly positively correlated and that the professors who are best at improving the academic achievement of their best students are not always also the ones who boost their earnings the most, especially for the least able students.