Analyzing the Determinants of the Matching Public School Teachers to Jobs: Estimating Compensating Differentials in Imperfect Labor Markets

50 Pages Posted: 4 Aug 2003 Last revised: 30 Dec 2022

See all articles by Donald Boyd

Donald Boyd

SUNY at Albany

Hamilton Lankford

SUNY at Albany - College of Arts and Sciences

Susanna Loeb

Stanford University; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

James H. Wyckoff

SUNY at Albany - College of Arts and Sciences

Date Written: August 2003

Abstract

Although there is growing recognition of the contribution of teachers to students' educational outcomes, there are large gaps in our understanding of how teacher labor markets function. Most research on teacher labor markets use models developed for the private sector. However, markets for public school teachers differ in fundamental ways from those in the private sector. Collective bargaining and public decision making processes set teacher salaries. Thus it is unlikely that wages adjust quickly to equilibrate the supply and demand for worker and job attributes. The objective of this paper is to develop and estimate a model that more accurately characterizes the institutional features of teacher labor markets. The approach is based on a game-theoretic two-sided matching model and the estimation strategy employs the method of simulated moments. With this combination, we are able to estimate how factors affect the choices of individual teachers and hiring authorities, as well as how these choices interact to determine the equilibrium allocation of teachers across jobs. Even though this paper focuses on worker-job match within teacher labor markets, many of the issues raised and the empirical framework employed are relevant in other settings where wages are set administratively or, more generally, do not clear the pertinent markets for job and worker attributes.

Suggested Citation

Boyd, Donald and Lankford, Hamilton and Loeb, Susanna and Wyckoff, James H., Analyzing the Determinants of the Matching Public School Teachers to Jobs: Estimating Compensating Differentials in Imperfect Labor Markets (August 2003). NBER Working Paper No. w9878, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=430592

Donald Boyd

SUNY at Albany ( email )

1400 Washington Avenue
Albany, NY 12222
United States

Hamilton Lankford

SUNY at Albany - College of Arts and Sciences ( email )

1400 Washington Avenue
Albany, NY 12222
United States

Susanna Loeb (Contact Author)

Stanford University ( email )

School of Education 402P CERAS, 520 Galvez Mall
Stanford, CA 94305
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National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

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Cambridge, MA 02138
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James H. Wyckoff

SUNY at Albany - College of Arts and Sciences ( email )

1400 Washington Avenue
Albany, NY 12222
United States

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