Early Retirement Incentives and Student Achievement

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Fitzpatrick, Maria D.; Lovenheim, Michael F.
• 署名单位: Cornell University; National Bureau of Economic Research
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-ECONOMIC POLICY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7731
• DOI: 10.1257/pol.6.3.120
• 发表日期: 2014
• 页码: 120-154
• 关键词: class size; pension incentives; teacher quality; schools; decisions

摘要

Early retirement incentives (ERIs) are increasingly prevalent in education as districts seek to close budget gaps by replacing expensive experienced teachers with lower cost newer teachers. Combined with the aging of the teacher workforce, these ERIs are likely to change the composition of teachers dramatically in the coming years. We use exogenous variation from an ERI program in Illinois in the mid-1990s to provide the first evidence in the literature of the effects of large-scale teacher retirements on student achievement. We find the program did not reduce test scores; likely, it increased them, with positive effects most pronounced in lower SES schools.