We estimate a matching model of teachers and elementary schools with rich data on teachers' applications and principals' ratings from a large, urban district in North Carolina. Both teachers’ and principals’ preferences deviate from those that would maximize the achievement of economically disadvantaged students: teachers prefer schools with fewer disadvantaged students, and principals' ratings are weakly related to teacher effectiveness. In equilibrium, these two deviations combine to produce a surprisingly equitable current allocation, where teacher quality is balanced across advantaged and disadvantaged students. To close achievement gaps, policies that address deviations on one side alone are ineffective or harmful, while policies that address both could substantially increase the achievement of disadvantaged students.

We examine how a 16-week cut in potential unemployment insurance (UI) duration in Missouri affected search behavior of UI recipients and the aggregate labor market. Using a regression discontinuity design (RDD), we estimate marginal effects of maximum duration on UI and nonemployment spells of 0.45 and 0.25, respectively. We simulate the unemployment rate implied by the RDD estimates assuming no market-level externalities. The implied response closely approximates the decline in the unemployment rate following the benefit cut, suggesting that, even in a period of high unemployment, the labor market absorbed the influx of workers without crowding out other job seekers.

We provide new evidence on the effect of the unemployment insurance (UI) weekly benefit amount on unemployment insurance spells based on administrative data from the state of Missouri covering the period 2003-2013. Identification comes from a regression kink design that exploits the quasi-experimental variation around the kink in the UI benefit schedule. We find that UI durations are more responsive to benefit levels during the recession and its aftermath, with an elasticity between 0.65 and 0.9 as compared to about 0.35 pre-recession.