Labor Market Frictions and Production Efficiency in Public Schools

Dongwoo Kim, Cory Koedel, Shawn Ni () and Michael Podgursky

No 1604, Working Papers from Department of Economics, University of Missouri

Abstract: State-specific licensing policies and pension plans create mobility costs for educators who cross state lines. We empirically test whether these costs affect production in schools–a hypothesis that follows directly from economic theory on labor frictions–using geo coded data on school locations and state boundaries. We find that achievement is lower in mathematics, and to a lesser extent in reading, at schools that are more exposed to state boundaries. A detailed investigation of the selection of schools into boundary regions yields no indication of systematic differences between boundary and non-boundary schools along other measured dimensions. Moreover, we show that cross-district labor frictions do not explain state boundary effects. Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that mobility frictions in educator labor markets near state boundaries lower student achievement.

Keywords: labor mobility; labor frictions; teacher labor market; teacher pensions; teacher licensing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H7 I2 J6 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 58 pages
Date: 2016-05, Revised 2017-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-lab and nep-ure
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Journal Article: Labor market frictions and production efficiency in public schools (2017)
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