Boosting early retirement in cash-strapped districts does not hurt students' math and reading scores, according to new studies released at the American Economic Association meeting, but pension-incentive programs may cost schools some of their most effective teachers. Separate studies of teachers in California, Illinois, and North Carolina paint a…

Teacher pensions consume a substantial portion of school budgets. If relatively generous pensions help attract effective teachers, the expense might be justified. But new evidence suggests that current pension systems, by concentrating benefits on teachers who spend their entire careers in a single state and penalizing mobile teachers, may…

Defined Benefit pension plans often generate odd time patterns of benefits. One typical pattern exhibits low accrual in early years, accelerating in mid-late years, followed by dramatic decline, or even negative returns in years that are relatively young for retirement. We consider four states for specific analysis: Arkansas, Missouri, California…