Teacher Preferences in Developing Countries: Evidences from the City of Sao Paulo, Brazil

This paper sheds light on teacher preferences for school attributes, using administrative data from a highly-centralized teacher hiring process in the largest city of Latin America, Sao Paulo, Brazil. The results indicate that... [ view full abstract ]

This paper sheds light on teacher preferences for school attributes, using administrative data from a highly-centralized teacher hiring process in the largest city of Latin America, Sao Paulo, Brazil. The results indicate that teachers prefer schools that are closer to the downtown (richest areas of the city), have greater average test scores, and have a lower proportion of students from low-socioeconomic households. In addition, the paper also examines how small increases in wages can affect teacher preferences regarding school assignment. To do so, it analyzes a policy experiment whereby the city pays wage-premiums for teachers working in schools in selected neighborhoods. Exploiting the exogenous variation that this policy creates in the wages for schools close to neighborhood boundaries, I use a regression discontinuity design to estimate the effect of policy on teacher choices. The findings indicate that while wages do change as a result of the policy, the amount (5%) appears to not be enough to alter teacher choices.