Three essays on the Economics of Education with Empirical Evidence from Arkansas

The three essays of my dissertation investigate both how the incentives created by a teacher retirement system influence the labor market for teachers and the effects of consolidation on student achievement. I make use of longitudinal data containing observations on both teachers and students in Arkansas to provide evidence on each of my research questions.;In my first essay I analyze the Arkansas teacher pension plan and empirically gauge the behavioral response to incentives embedded in that plan, as well as to possible reforms. I estimate the effect of pension wealth accrual on teacher separation decisions, and then simulate the response to eliminating early retirement, raising the service requirement for normal retirement, and a shift to a constant accrual retirement plan.;In my second essay I present a further empirical investigation of teacher's behavioral response to the incentives embedded in Arkansas' teacher pension plan. I use value added estimates to explore the possibility that teachers of different quality differ in their response to pension incentives.;My final essay seeks to answer the question: Does student achievement improve when small school districts are consolidated with larger ones? This essay takes advantage of a natural experiment in Arkansas which occurred when policymakers required the consolidation of all districts with average daily attendance of fewer than 350 students for two consecutive years. Using both regression discontinuity and instrumental variable models, this paper attempts to tease out the effects of state mandated consolidation in Arkansas.