How Do Teachers Improve? The Relative Importance of Specific and General Human Capital

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Ost, Ben
• 署名单位: University of Illinois System; University of Illinois Chicago; University of Illinois Chicago Hospital
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-APPLIED ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7782
• DOI: 10.1257/app.6.2.127
• 发表日期: 2014
• 页码: 127-151
• 关键词: student-achievement

摘要

One of the most consistent findings in the literature on teacher quality is that teachers improve with experience, especially in the first several years. This study extends this research by separately identifying the benefits of general teaching experience and specific curriculum familiarity. I find that both specific and general human capital contribute to teacher improvement and that recent specific experience is more valuable than distant specific experience. This paper also contributes to a broader literature on human capital acquisition, as it is among the first to examine human capital specificity using a direct measure of productivity.