Fondazione GRINS
Growing Resilient,
Inclusive and Sustainable
Galleria Ugo Bassi 1, 40121, Bologna, IT
C.F/P.IVA 91451720378
Finanziato dal Piano Nazionale di Ripresa e Resilienza (PNRR), Missione 4 (Infrastruttura e ricerca), Componente 2 (Dalla Ricerca all’Impresa), Investimento 1.3 (Partnership Estese), Tematica 9 (Sostenibilità economica e finanziaria di sistemi e territori).
Open Access
We study how managerial practices of school principals affect student performance and aspirations. For 2011 and 2015, we merge administrative data on Italian high school students with the management quality indices of their principals, constructed using the World Management Survey methodology.
The frequent principals’ turnover over this period allows us to causally interpret school-fixed-effect estimates. We find that management quality positively and substantially impacts standardized math and language tests and student desire to attend college. The comparison to pooled-OLS suggests that fixed effects correct for the downward bias arising from selection of better principals into more difficult schools.
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AKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Contacts: Adriana Di Liberto, diliberto@unica.it; Ludovica Giua, ludovica.giua@unica.it; Fabi- ano Schivardi, fschivardi@luiss.it; Marco Sideri, marco.sideri@crenos.unica.it; Giovanni Sulis, gsulis@unica.it. Corresponding author: Adriana Di Liberto, University of Cagliari, Department of Eco- nomics and Business, Via S. Ignazio 17, 09123 Cagliari, Italy. We thank the World Management Survey team for their training and full support during the first wave of the Italian WMS data collection process. We also thank Orazio Attanasio, Maria De Paola, Mariarosa Agostino and the seminar participants at Brunel University (London), Potsdam University (Potsdam), the 10th Italian Congress of Econometrics and Empir- ical Economics (Cagliari), the 2024 EALE Conference (Prague), the workshops on the Economics of Human Capital (AIEL-Padua University), Institutions, Individual Behavior and Economic Outcomes (University of Sassari) and Advances in Economics of Education (University of Calabria) for very useful comments and discussions, and INVALSI for providing the 2011 and 2015 data on student outcomes. Anna Maria Maullu and Massimo Depau (Associazione Nazionale Presidi) and Sergio Repetto (Ufficio Scolastico Regionale) gave us crucial information on Italian principals. We are solely responsible for all the remaining errors. Financial support from the Regione Sardegna Legge 7/2007 (grant CUP F71J09000300002; grant no. CRP 60619; grant CUP F25C20001170002) and from the Fondazione Giovanni Agnelli is gratefully acknowledged. Fabi- ano Schivardi thanks the ERC for financial support (ERC grant 835201). This study was also funded by the European Union - NextGenerationEU, Mission 4, Component 2, in the framework of the GRINS -Growing Resilient, INclusive and Sustainable project (GRINS PE00000018 – CUP F53C22000760007). The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union, nor can the European Union be held responsible for them. Declarations of interest: none.
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