Research & Policy

Working Papers

• “When Geography Shapes Preferences: Redesigning Teacher Assignment in Italy”, with Battal Dogan. [PDF]
  + Abstract
  We investigate Italy’s centralized teacher assignment system where teachers can rank “geographical regions”, leading to ties in their rank order lists (ROLs). We show that the way ties in teachers’ ROLs are resolved in the current assignment mechanism systematically violates teachers’ priority rights and results in justified envy. We propose a new mechanism, Deferred Acceptance with Hierarchical Choice (DA-HC), which is strategy-proof, eliminates justified envy, and Pareto improves over the benchmark deferred acceptance mechanism with simple tie-breaking (DA-STB). Using administrative data, we provide evidence that DA-HC can potentially bring significant welfare improvements over the benchmark DA-STB.
  
  
  • “Best Paper Award” at the 25th ACM Conference on Economics and Computation (2024)
  • “Exemplary Track Paper Award in Applied Modeling” at the 25th ACM Conference on Economics and Computation (2024)
  • Proceedings of the 25th ACM Conference on Economics and Computation (2024)

Work in Progress

• “Retention Policies in Teacher Reassignment”.
  + Abstract
  Workers typically change positions multiple times throughout their career. As a result, in many labor markets, commitment constraints are widely adopted to force workers staying in their current position and reduce turnover. However, these constraints can be detrimental for workers’ welfare. Motivated by retention policy schemes adopted in the Italian teacher assignment system, I quantitatively evaluate the trade-off between teacher retention and teacher welfare under different policies. Using administrative data on tenured teacher mobility applications, I build and estimate a tractable dynamic model of teacher application behavior, where teachers are allowed to reapply across years and respond to dynamic incentives. Through counterfactual exercises, I show that policies offering score bonuses for remaining in a position can outperform those requiring teachers to wait before moving. However, I show that these bonus-based policies may be less effective in contexts like Italy, where geographical priorities are in place along with a point-based score system.
• “Modifying school choice for more equitable outcomes in England” with Simon Burgess, Estelle Cantillon, and Ellen Greaves.
• “Age at School Entry: What Do We Know So Far?”, with Elizabeth Dhuey, Luca Fumarco, Levi Halewyck, Simon ter Meulen.
• “Choosing in the Dark. Information Revelation and Teacher Distribution”.
  + Abstract
  This paper investigates the effects of revealing partial information about available vacancies on the distribution of teachers across schools. To identify this effect I exploit a quasi-experimental variation provided by the information disclosure policy in Italy’s centralized teacher assignment. Information about available vacancies is released by Provincial Offices of Education. However, due to lack of coordination, some offices may not release, or not release in time, this information. Using comprehensive administrative data on tenured teacher applications and webscraped data on public announcements about teacher retirements, I use plausible exogenous variation in announcements across years and provinces in a difference-in-differences strategy. I provide novel evidence on the role of information disclosure in shaping teacher distribution across schools. I show that there are within-province distributional effects (i) within temporary contract teachers and tenured teachers and, (ii) within less experienced tenured teachers and more experienced tenured teachers.
• “The Italian North-South Divide. Market Design for Balanced Teacher Reassignment”.
• “Solving High-Dimensional Portfolio Choice Models in School Choice”.

Policy Writing

• “School Admissions in England: The Rules Schools Choose on Which Pupils to Admit” (2023), with Simon Burgess, Estelle Cantillon, Ellen Greaves, Min Zhang. Policy Report [PDF] [Economics Blog]
  + Abstract
  Most secondary schools in England are able to design the rules for which pupils have priority when the school is over-subscribed. This could be positive or negative for inclusivity, depending on schools’ choices. In this context, we study the detailed rules for each secondary school in England. Our main findings are that, first, geography (still) determines admission to most over-subscribed schools. This matters for social mobility, as some households are priced out of high performing schools due to higher property prices around the school. Second, despite explicit financial incentives, only a small minority of schools give priority to pupils eligible for the Pupil Premium, and this priority is meaningful only in a few dozen schools. Third, the few schools with ‘innovative’ admissions arrangements could inspire other schools to implement feasible ‘tried and tested’ reforms. Free schools appear to be leading these ‘innovative’ admissions arrangements. Finally, in the complex system of multiple school types and diverse admissions arrangements, parents in some areas lack the required information to make informed school choices.

Publications

• “Lost in Translation: Reading and Math Performance of Second-Generation Immigrant Children in Italy”, with Giuseppe Russo, Journal of Human Capital, Accepted. [PDF (WP Version)]
  + Abstract
  This paper explores the effect of language proficiency on Math achievement for ten-year-old second-generation immigrant children in Italian primary schools. Especially for these children, proficiency in the host country language is the prerequisite for the acquisition of any other skill. However, using an instrumental variable strategy that exploits the heterogeneity in birth dates and the variation in linguistic distances, we find that they face a trade-off between learning Italian and learning Math. The linguistic literature offers an explanation based on the existence of a language proficiency threshold that must be crossed to understand the classes. On this basis, we develop a simple model of skill production that provides theoretical foundations for our results and a unified framework for interpreting the mixed findings in the literature. We present empirical evidence that the trade-off arises when proficiency is below the threshold commonly adopted to indicate a sufficient command of the Italian language, which happens for 59% of our sample. Enabling these children to catch up requires substantial investments in education since, when a sufficiency threshold must be crossed, marginal improvements are ineffective, rendering the proficiency gap permanent and fostering social exclusion and inequality.