This paper uses new data to study school management and productivity in India. We report five main results. First, management quality in public schools is low, and -2 standard deviations below high-income countries with comparable data. Second, private schools have higher management quality, driven by much stronger people management. Third, people management quality is correlated with independent measures of teaching practice, as well as school productivity measured by student value added. Fourth, better-managed schools have lower variation in within-school teacher effectiveness and higher levels of minimum teacher effectiveness. Fifth, consistent with better people management, teacher pay in private schools is positively correlated with teacher effectiveness, whereas we find no such correlation in public schools.

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1 July 2024

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The Economic Journal 134(661) , pp.2071-2100, 2024

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DOI: 10.1093/ej/uead112

https://doi.org/10.1093/ej/uead112

This Journal article is published under the centre's Growth programme.