How do alternative job opportunities affect teacher quality? We provide causal evidence on this question by exploiting business cycle conditions at career start as a source of exogenous variation in the outside options of potential teachers. Unlike prior research, we directly assess teacher quality with value-added measures of impacts on student test scores, using administrative data on over 30,000 Florida public school teachers. Consistent with a Roy model of occupational choice, teachers entering the profession during recessions are significantly more effective in raising student test scores. Results are supported by robustness tests and unlikely to be driven by differential attrition.

中文翻译：

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市场疲软，师资力量强：职业发展初期的衰退和教师的效能

替代性工作机会如何影响教师素质？我们通过在职业生涯开始时利用商业周期条件，作为潜在教师外部选择中外在变化的来源，来提供有关该问题的因果证据。与先前的研究不同，我们使用超过30,000名佛罗里达州公立学校教师的行政数据，通过对学生考试成绩产生影响的增值措施直接评估教师的素质。与罗伊（Roy）的职业选择模型相一致，在经济衰退期间进入该行业的教师在提高学生考试成绩方面更为有效。结果得到了稳健性测试的支持，不太可能由差分损耗驱动。