Opportunity Wages, Classroom Characteristics, and Teacher Mobility

Li Feng ()
Additional contact information
Li Feng: Department of Finance and Economics, McCoy Hall 561, McCoy College of Business and Administration, Texas State University-San Marcos, 601 University Drive, San Marcos, TX 78666, USA

Southern Economic Journal, 2009, vol. 75, issue 4, 1165-1190

Abstract: This article analyzes the impact of classroom characteristics and opportunity wages on four possible labor market choices of teachers in Florida: remaining at their present school, switching schools within a school district, changing school districts, and leaving teaching. Discrete-time multinomial-logit-hazard model estimates indicate that classroom characteristics play a larger role than school average student characteristics in determining teacher mobility. Opportunity wages based on past teacher movements to other competing districts and professions are found to pull teachers away from their initial placements. Once opportunity wages and working conditions are considered, teachers’ own salaries are found to exert little impact on teacher mobility within the profession; although, they reduce attrition out of the profession. Policy simulations indicate that targeted salary increases based on teacher-specific working conditions are important to retain teachers at a given school.

JEL-codes: I21 J45 J62 J81 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (23) Track citations by RSS feed

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sej:ancoec:v:75:4:y:2009:p:1165-1190

Access Statistics for this article

Southern Economic Journal is currently edited by Laura Razzolini

More articles in Southern Economic Journal from Southern Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Laura Razzolini ().