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James Harrington
Pension Reform and Labor Supply: Retention and Productivity under a Pension Cut
We examine the effect of a representative pension reform on the retention and productivity of public-school teachers. The reform reduced pension annuities and increased penalties for early retirement---projected to save eight percent of revenues. We leverage detailed administrative records and a discontinuity in the reform to estimate its effect. The reform increased worker retention by 3 percent, discouraging early retirement. Using idiosyncratic within-school variation in reform exposure, we find the reform increased student achievement by 0.03 student standard deviations, mediated by retention and effort. Thus, the reform maintained or improved both the extensive and intensive margins of labor supply.