PhD Job Market Practice

Speaker: Mariagrazia Cavallo

Title:  When Geography Shapes Preferences and Priorities: Redesigning Teacher Assignment in Italy (with Battol Dogan)

Format: Hybrid

Abstract: We investigate Italy's teacher assignment system, where teachers can rank  "geographical regions'' (municipalities, districts, or provinces), leading to ties in their rank order lists (ROLs). The geographical structure significantly influences teachers' priority rights at different schools, as well. Analyzing administrative data, we identify systematic violations of teachers' priority rights, resulting from the way ties in teachers' ROLs are resolved — a mechanism initially introduced to mitigate efficiency losses from random tie-breaking. To address these issues, we propose a new assignment mechanism that completely respects priority rights and Pareto improves over random tie-breaking. Additionally, our mechanism is strategy-proof for the teachers, unlike the current mechanism. Using administrative data, we quantitatively evaluate the potential improvements in fairness and welfare that could arise from implementing our proposed mechanism.

Organisers: Derrick and Dipima

For more information, please contact the organisers.