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The trade-off between pension costs and salary expenditures in the public sector

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2020

Dongwoo Kim ,
Cory Koedel  and
P. Brett Xiang
Dongwoo Kim
Affiliation:
Economics, Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, Texas, USA
Cory Koedel*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics and Truman School of Public Affairs, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri, USA
P. Brett Xiang
Affiliation:
Department of Economics and Truman School of Public Affairs, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri, USA
*
*Corresponding author. Email: koedelc@missouri.edu
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Abstract

We examine pension-cost crowd out of salary expenditures in the public sector using a 15-year data panel of state teacher pension plans spanning the Great Recession. While there is no evidence of salary crowd out prior to the Great Recession, there is a shift in the post-recession years such that a 1% (of salaries) increase in the annual required pension contribution corresponds to a decrease in total teacher salary expenditures of 0.24%. The effect operates through changes to the size of the teaching workforce, not changes to teacher wages. An explanation for the effect heterogeneity pre- and post-recession is that public employers are less able to shield the workforce from pension costs during times of fiscal stress. This problem is exacerbated because unlike other benefit costs, such as for health care, pension costs are countercyclical.

Keywords

Pension costspension crowd-out of salariespension incidenceteacher pensionsH75J32I22
Type
Article
Information
Journal of Pension Economics & Finance , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , January 2021 , pp. 151 - 168
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2020

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