Abstract
We investigate the effects of various measures of science teachers' cognitive skills—based on academic degrees, math matriculation scores, and psychometric math scores—on their students’ educational achievements. Utilizing detailed administrative data of 12th grade students and their science teachers, spanning the years 2012 to 2019, we find that teachers' cognitive abilities—mainly those measured by math matriculation scores—have clear and positive effects on both students' short-term matriculation test scores and several long-term measures of academic success, such as the probability of pursuing post-secondary studies at a research university and the probability of choosing a STEM major subject. Additionally, teachers with higher cognitive abilities are shown to lead to higher gains, particularly among students with stronger aptitude and same-gender student-teacher matching.
Keywords: Government Policy, Returns to Education, Higher Education.