This paper exploits a major, unanticipated reform of the California teachers' pension to provide quasi-experimental evidence on the link between pension generosity and retirement timing. Using two large administrative datasets, the author conducts a reduced-form analysis of the pension reform and estimates a structural model of retirement timing.…

Using Spanish Social Security records, we document the channels through which mothers fall onto a lower earnings track, such as shifting into part- time work, accumulating lower experience, or transitioning to lower-paying jobs, and are able to explain 71 percent of the unconditional individual fixed- effects motherhood wage gap. The earnings…

Teacher pensions are fast becoming a significant issue in education policy. Mounting unfunded pension financial liability, likely larger numbers of retiring teachers, increasing mobility among existing teachers, and unfavorable comparisons with less generous private sector pension plans all contribute to putting pedagogues pensions in the public…

A November 2011 Heritage Foundation report--"Assessing the Compensation of Public-School Teachers"--presented data on teacher salaries and benefits in order to inform debates about teacher compensation reform. The report concluded that public-school teacher compensation is far ahead of what comparable private-sector workers enjoy, and that…

Depression is one of the leading causes of disability in the developed world. Previous studies have shown varying depression prevalence rates between European countries, and also within countries, between socioeconomic groups. However, it is unclear whether these differences reflect true variations in prevalence or whether they are attributable to…

The State of Israel provides significant opportunities to study social processes that can enhance our understanding of the aging experience. It has high life expectancy and rapid growth of its older population. With an older cohort that is composed largely of former immigrants and includes a minority Arab population, Israel provides much diversity…

Colleges, universities, and the communities they serve have always been concerned about students' abilities to pay and the systems of aid to support students' learning. This article reviews the history of aiding student in higher education. Early student- and institutionally-led programs are discussed along with initial philanthropic and…

On August 17, 2006, President George W. Bush signed into law the Pension Protection Act (PL 109-280). The 907-page federal law has been referred to as the most comprehensive reform of the nation's pension law since the enactment of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) of 1974 (Lucas, 2008). This paper will examine the major…

This report compares the pay, pension costs and retiree health benefits of teachers with those of similarly qualified private-sector workers. The study concludes that teachers receive total compensation 52% greater than fair market levels, which translates into a $120 billion annual "overcharge" to taxpayers. Built on a series of faulty analyses,…

The purpose of this article was to present the results of a study that analyzed Pennsylvania local school boards' taxing authority, pre- and post-enactment of Special Session Act 1, "The Taxpayer Relief Act," in 2006, in terms of its percent share of school districts' total budget in order to better understand the impact of the new…

The authors analyze the Arkansas teacher pension plan and empirically gauge the behavioral response to incentives embedded in that plan and to possible reforms. The pattern of pension wealth accrual creates sharp incentives to work until eligible for early or normal retirement, often in one's early fifties, and to separate shortly thereafter. We…

As retiring personnel of Japan's private higher educational institutions (HEIs) take a large portion of the accumulated retirement funds at their career exit today, their younger colleagues are left with a bleak future with a quickly depleting reserve for their own retirement allowances. The fact that many insolvent organizations are on the verge…

The 2012 federal Budget marks the beginning of a painful and unnecessary fiscal retrenchment. Despite boasting one of the lowest debt-to-GDP ratios amongst industrialized countries, the Conservative government is pressing ahead with deep cuts of more than $5 billion across departmental budgets by 2014-15. For post-secondary education and research,…

Limited information exists on how early career teachers, particularly those in "Generation Y", feel about the pension system and potential reforms to the pension system. This paper presents an analysis of the appeal of different aspects of pension plans; their influence on charter versus traditional public school teachers; and how…

This paper offers three constructive recommendations that apply specifically to public school teachers, the largest group of state and local government employees, and one of special importance to the long-term economic competitiveness of the country. The recommendations embrace and protect existing defined-benefit pension plans, which are under…