Resources

  • The School Administrator Payoff from Teacher Pensions

    As this paper documents, the rule structure in educator pension plans, combined with the career-cycle timing of teachers’ promotions into administrative positions, results in senior management in K–12 education enjoying the largest net benefits from these plans. Yet it is these administrators who are expected to be the professional voice for the school districts that are bearing the heavy cost of employee pension benefits.
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  • Teacher Pension Systems, the Composition of the Teaching Workforce, and Teacher Quality

    This paper uses data from Missouri to examine the link between teachers’ pension incentives and workforce quality and finds no evidence to suggest that the incentives raise quality.
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  • When Teachers Choose Pension Plans: The Florida Story

    This paper analyzes a 2002 policy change in Florida allowing teachers to choose between a traditional defined benefit pension plan and a 401k-style defined contribution plan. The authors were able to track who chose which plan, what subject they taught, how effective they were in the classroom, how long they remained teaching, and whether the pension plan’s structure had any effect on retention. The paper also estimates how many teachers lose out under the state's defined benefit plan and how much they stand to lose in retirement savings.
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  • The Link between Pensions and Retirement Timing: Lessons from California Teachers

    This paper uses a policy change in California to show that the extreme rewards and penalties built into existing defined benefit teacher pension systems do affect teacher retirement behavior.
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  • Public Fund Survey (FY 2012)

    The Public Fund Survey is an online compendium of key characteristics of most of the nation’s largest public retirement systems. This report focuses on fiscal year 2012. This summary describes changes in selected elements of the survey, including funding levels, membership, contribution rates, investment returns, and investment return assumptions.
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