Teacher mobility responses to wage changes: evidence from quasi-natural experiment

This paper utilizes a Norwegian experiment with exogenous wage changes to study teacher’s turnover decisions. Within a completely centralized wage setting system, teachers in schools with a high degree of teacher vacancies in the past got a wage premium of about 10 percent during the period 1993-94 to 2002-03. The empirical strategy exploits that several schools switched status during the empirical period. In a fixed effects framework, the wage premium reduces the probability to quit by 6-7 percentage points and increases recruitment by 4-7 percentage points.

The elasticity of labor supply at the establishment level

Monopsonistic wage-setting power requires that the supply of labor directed toward individual establishments is upward sloping. This paper utilizes institutional features to identify the supply curve. The elasticity of labor supply is estimated using data for the Norwegian teacher labor market in a period where the only variation in the wage level was determined centrally, and with information on whether there is excess demand or not at the school level. In fixed effects models, the supply elasticity faced by individual schools is estimated to about 1.5, and is in the range 1.0–1.9 in different model specification.Labor supply elasticity; teacher supply; monopsony, monopsony papers

Wage Bargaining and Employer Objectives

This paper compares union wage bargaining outcomes across different types of employers. Five different employer objectives are discussed; profit–, welfare– and output maximization, and two specifications of a Leviathan. The model shows that the ordering of the union wage level across employer types depends on the functional form of product demand. With constant elasticity of product demand, the wage tends to be lowest in the output maximization case, while with a linear product demand, the wage tends to be lowest under welfare maximization.Wage bargaining; Employer objectives; Wage differentials

Wage Bargaining and Political Strength in the Public Sector

This paper analysis the link between political strength and public sector wages using a unique matched individual-employer data set for Norwegian local governments during the period 1990-1998. The results indicate that political strength, measured in several ways, has a positive effect on wages, while administrative strength, measured by the tenure of the chief executive, has a negative effect. The positive effect of political strength is consistent with a model in which the budgetary process is a multistage game and employment is determined in an interaction with interest groups prior to the wage bargain.public sector labor market, wage bargaining, political strength, budgetary process

Does a generous welfare state crowd out student effort? Panel data evidence from international student tests

Student achievement has been identified as an important contributor to economic growth. This paper investigates the hypothesis that redistributive government activities have a negative effect on investment in human capital using data from international comparative student achievement tests in Mathematics and Science for over 70 countries during the period 1980 to 2003. In fixed effects models, the impact on student achievement of both government consumption and government social expenditures are negative and seem to be robust across different model specifications. The effect of social expenditures appears to be driven by spending on pensions and active labor market policies.Student achievement; welfare state; panel data, PISA, TIMSS

The effect of education on cognitive ability

We analyze whether the amount of schooling influences intelligence as measured by IQ tests. By use of a novel longitudinal dataset we are able to condition on early cognitive ability to account for selection into non-compulsory schooling when estimating the effect on cognitive ability at age 20. OLS estimates indicate that one year of schooling increases IQ by 2.8-3.5 points (about 0.2 standard deviations). When family income per family member and teacher evaluations of the individuals at age 10 are used as instruments for schooling and early cognitive ability, the return to schooling is estimated to 3.5-3.8 IQ points.Cognitive ability; Education production; Return to schooling

Homework assignment and student achievement in OECD countries

By using data from 16 OECD countries who participated in TIMSS 2007, this paper analyzes the effect of assigning homework on student achievement. The identification rests on within-student variation in homework across subjects in a sample of students who have the same teacher in both mathematics and science. Unobserved teacher and student characteristics are conditioned out of the model by applying a difference-in-difference approach. We find a modest, but statistically significant effect of homework.

Student progression in upper secondary education: The effect of academic ability, gender, and schools

This paper studies how students’ prior academic ability, gender, and family background affect performance in upper secondary schools in terms of lack of progression and dropout probability. The link between dropout and lack of progression in post-compulsory schooling is important as graduating from upper secondary school is a prerequisite to attend universities and other higher education institutions. Using an extremely rich data set from Norway covering all students starting upper secondary school education in the fall 2002, we find that earlier school performance is the main predictor of dropout and lack of progression. This holds controlling for a number of family background variables, study tracks and a full set of school fixed effects.

The effect of early cognitive ability on earnings over the life-cycle

This paper utilizes information on cognitive ability at age ten and earnings information from age 20 to 65 to estimate the return to ability over the life-cycle. Ability measured at an early age is not influenced by the individual’s choices of schooling and other circumstances. We find that most of the unconditional return to early cognitive ability goes through educational choice. The conditional return is increasing for low levels of experience and non-increasing for experience above about 15-25 years. The return is similar for men and women, and highest for individuals with academic education. Only a small part of the return can be explained by higher probability to have a supervisory position.Cognitive ability; life-cycle; earnings; IQ

Public sector decentralization and school performance: International evidence

Using a panel of international student test scores 1980 – 2000 (PISA and TIMSS), panel fixed effects estimates suggest that government spending decentralization is conducive to student performance. The effect does not appear to be mediated through levels of educational spending.Fiscal decentralization; Student achievement; federalism; PISA; TIMSS; education; school quality