The labor market for teachers under different pay schemes

Author / Creator

Biasi, Barbara, author

Available as

Online

Summary

Compensation of most US public school teachers is rigid and solely based on seniority. This paper studies a 2011 reform that gave school districts in Wisconsin full autonomy to redesign teacher pay...

Compensation of most US public school teachers is rigid and solely based on seniority. This paper studies a 2011 reform that gave school districts in Wisconsin full autonomy to redesign teacher pay schemes. I show that, following the reform, some districts switched to flexible compensation and started paying high-quality teachers more. Teacher quality increased in these districts relative to those with seniority pay, due to a change in workforce composition and an increase in effort. I estimate a structural model of this labor market to investigate the effects of alternative pay schemes on the composition of the teaching workforce.

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