During the late 1990s public pension funds across the United States accrued large actuarial surpluses. The seemingly flush conditions of the pension funds led legislators in most states to substantially improve retirement benefits for public workers, including teachers. In this study we examine the benefit enhancements to the teacher pension…

Voters in Marin County have long been willing to pass parcel taxes to fund their schools. In 2016, taxes faced unprecedented opposition from local activists; taxes in Kentfield and Mill Valley were defeated or passed by previously unheard-of narrow margins, respectively. What changed? This case study uses district financial and demographic data as…

This report examines teacher pension plans in Missouri, with a particular focus on the Kansas City and Saint Louis school districts. Missouri is unusual in that public educators are divided among three pension systems: the Kansas City Public School Retirement System (KC), which covers 3 percent of Missouri teachers; the Public School Retirement…

We use data from workers in the largest public-sector occupation in the United States -- teaching -- to examine the effect of pension enhancements on employee retention. Specifically, we study a 1999 enhancement to the benefit formula for public school teachers in St. Louis that resulted in an immediate and dramatic increase in their incentives to…

State-specific licensing policies and pension plans create mobility costs for educators who cross state lines. We empirically test whether these costs affect production in schools--a hypothesis that follows directly from economic theory on labor frictions--using geocoded data on school locations and state boundaries. We find that achievement is…

Teacher pension systems target retirements within a narrow range of the career cycle by penalizing individuals who separate too soon or remain employed too long. The penalties result in the retention of some teachers who would otherwise choose to leave, and the premature exit of some teachers who would otherwise choose to stay. We examine how the…

State-specific licensing policies and pension plans create mobility costs for educators who cross state lines. We empirically test whether these costs affect production in schools--a hypothesis that follows directly from economic theory on labor frictions--using geo-coded data from the lower-48 states. We find that achievement is lower in…

During the late 1990s public pension funds across the United States accrued large actuarial surpluses. The seemingly flush conditions of the pension funds led legislators in most states to substantially improve retirement benefits for public workers, including teachers. In this study we examine the benefit enhancements to the teacher pension…

Educators in public schools in the United States are typically enrolled in defined-benefit pension plans, which penalize across-plan mobility. We use administrative data from Missouri to examine how the mobility penalties affect the labor market for school leaders, and show that pension borders greatly reduce leadership flows across schools. Our…

Teacher pension systems concentrate retirements within a narrow range of the career cycle by penalizing individuals who separate too soon or remain employed too long. The penalties result in the retention of some teachers who would otherwise choose to leave, and the premature exit of some teachers who would otherwise choose to stay. We examine the…