Teacher allocation and school performance in Italy

Italy's secondary school system faced budget cuts, which limit availability of new permanent job slots for teachers. The allocation these favours teachers with more seniority such that the age distribution across schools reflects older teachers' preferences being close to urban centres. Using schools' distance from main centres and population size in school's vicinity instrument non-random exposure teachers, we show are detrimental pupil attainment. effect is large: a 6-year increase leads one standard deviation reduction graduation mark.