Molly Schwarz

Job Market Paper

Who Becomes a School Leader? An Investigation of Teachers' Careers and Value-Added

This paper investigates whether effective teachers are more likely to progress to school leadership positions. Using data on 4th through 8th grade teachers at elementary and middle schools in North Carolina, I estimate the relationship between a teacher's effectiveness in teaching (as measured by value-added to math and reading standardized test scores) and their likelihood of becoming an assistant principal in the next academic year.  I find that one standard deviation higher value-added math (reading) teachers are on average 33.7% (7.9%) more likely to become an assistant principal in the next academic year after controlling for differences across educators, such as demographic characteristics, teaching experience, and training. There is important heterogeneity in the size of this effect across groups, with value-added being more predictive of promotion to assistant principal for both male teachers and non-white teachers. Finally, to explore the consequences of promoting teachers based on current performance, I estimate principal value-added and compare it to an educator's teacher value-added. Using a back of the envelope calculation, I find that these promotion practices on average lead to small positive impacts on student achievement.

Working Papers

The Effect of Affordable Care Act Medicaid Expansions on Household Composition (joint with Matthew Fitzgerald)

Prior research has shown improvements in low-income individuals' financial well-being as a consequence of the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expansion. Given the connection between financial well-being and housing, we investigate the extent to which the provision of Medicaid to previously ineligible, low-income childless adults affects their household composition. Using a staggered adoption difference-in-differences design on an urban sample of individuals with less than a high school degree, we find that 26 to 39 year olds experience a significant 4.2% decline in the number of individuals living in the household, which is due to living with fewer extended family members. At the same time, 26 to 39 year olds experience a relatively smaller decline in the number of rooms (1.8%), leading to a 3.1% reduction in the level of household crowding, as measured by persons per bedroom. These reductions in household crowding are strongest for Hispanic individuals and those living in areas with above-median housing costs. In comparison, there are no significant impacts on household composition for 40 to 64 year olds as a consequence of the policy.

Knowing Me, Knowing You: An Experiment on Payoff Information and Strategic Uncertainty (joint with Hazem Alshaikhmubarak, David Hales, Maria Kogelnik, and Kent Strauss)

R&R at JESA

We experimentally study how mutual payoff information affects play in strategic settings. Subjects play the Prisoner's Dilemma or Stag Hunt game against randomly re-matched opponents under two information treatments. In our partial-information treatment subjects are shown only their own payoffs, while in our full-information treatment they are shown both their own and their opponent's payoffs. In both treatments, they receive feedback on their opponent's action after each round. We find that mutual payoff information initially facilitates reaching the Pareto-efficient outcome in both games. While play in the Prisoner's Dilemma converges toward the unique Nash equilibrium of the game under both information treatments, mutual payoff information has a substantial impact on the equilibrium selection in the Stag Hunt throughout all rounds of the game. Using a belief-learning model and simulations of play, we provide evidence that these effects are driven not only by initial play but also by the way subjects learn. We propose that strategic uncertainty is a probable channel through which payoff information affects play.

Works in Progress

Who Leaves Teaching After Childbirth? An Analysis of Teacher Retention and Teacher Quality

Paid Maternity Leave and Children’s Long Run Outcomes