TY - RPRT AU - Bloom, Nicholas AU - Lemos, Renata AU - Sadun, Raffaella AU - Reenen, John Van TI - Does Management Matter in Schools? PY - 2014/Nov/ PB - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) CY - Bonn T2 - IZA Discussion Paper IS - 8620 UR - https://www.iza.org/index.php/publications/dp8620 AB - We collect data on operations, targets and human resources management practices in over 1,800 schools educating 15-year-olds in eight countries. Overall, we show that higher management quality is strongly associated with better educational outcomes. The UK, Sweden, Canada and the US obtain the highest management scores closely followed by Germany, with a gap to Italy, Brazil and then finally India. We also show that autonomous government schools (i.e. government funded but with substantial independence like UK academies and US charters) have significantly higher management scores than regular government schools and private schools. Almost half of the difference between the management scores of autonomous government schools and regular government schools is accounted for by differences in leadership of the principal and better governance. KW - autonomy KW - pupil achievement KW - management KW - principals ER -