Many states enhanced benefits in teacher retirement plans during the 1990s. This paper examines the school staffing effects of one such enhancement in a major urban school district with mostly high poverty schools. Pension rule changes in 1999 for St. Louis public school teachers resulted in large increases in pension wealth for active teachers, as well as a powerful increase in ‘push’ incentives for earlier retirement. Simple descriptive statistics on retirement patterns before and after the enhancements suggest much earlier retirement resulted. Shorter teaching spells imply a steady state with more teacher turnover and a larger share of novice teachers in classrooms. To better understand the long-run effects of these changes and alternative policies, the authors estimate a structural model of teacher retirement. Simulations of retirement behavior for representative senior teachers point to shorter completed teaching spells and earlier retirement age as a result of the enhancements. By contrast, moving from the post-1999 to a DC-type plan would extend the teaching career of a representative senior teacher by roughly two years.

许多州在 1990 年代提高了教师退休计划的福利。本文研究了在主要城市学区的学校人员配备的影响，其中大部分都是高贫困学校。1999 年圣路易斯公立学校教师的养老金规则变化导致在职教师的养老金财富大幅增加，以及提前退休的“推动”激励措施的有力增加。对增强前后退休模式的简单描述性统计表明，导致了更早的退休。较短的教学时间意味着稳定状态，教师更替率更高，新教师在课堂上的比例更大。为了更好地了解这些变化和替代政策的长期影响，作者估计了教师退休的结构模型。具有代表性的高级教师的退休行为模拟表明，由于这些改进，完成的教学时间更短，退休年龄更早。相比之下，从 1999 年后转向 DC 类型的计划将使具有代表性的高级教师的教学生涯延长大约两年。