School Boards and Education Production: Evidence from Randomized Ballot Order
利用加州选票上候选人名字的随机顺序，研究当选学校董事会的教育工作者如何影响当地教育产出，发现他们减少特许学校数量并提高教师工资，有利于教师工会。
We examine the causal influence of educators elected to the school board on local education production. The key empirical challenge is that school board composition is endogenously determined through the electoral process. To overcome this, we develop a novel research design that leverages California’s randomized assignment of the order that candidate names appear on election ballots. We find that an additional educator elected to the school board reduces charter schooling and increases teacher salaries in the school district relative to other board members. We interpret these findings as consistent with educator board members shifting bargaining in favor of teachers’ unions.