养老金能提升努力和选择性保留吗？来自公立学校的证据
Do pensions enhance effort and selective retention?: Evidence from public schools
Journal of Public Economics · 2026 · [{"name": "Michael Bates", "affiliation": ["University of California, Riverside"]}, {"name": "Andrew C. Johnston", "affiliation": ["The University of Texas at Austin"]}]
中文摘要
雇主为何提供养老金？我们实证考察了两种理由，即养老金能提高员工努力程度并选择性地留住优秀员工。我们利用公立学校教师在养老金资格门槛附近关于努力与产出的丰富行政数据来检验这些假说。当教师跨过该门槛时，由于养老金累积额急剧减少，其有效薪酬下降幅度超过工资的50%。标准经济模型预测这一有效减薪会降低教师的努力与产出，但我们并未观察到此类下降。这表明，年度养老金累积并未实质性地提高努力程度。类似地，如果养老金能选择性地留住更优秀的教师，我们应预期当门槛处的留任激励消失时，平均教师质量会下降。但实际上，我们发现劳动力构成并无变化，这表明在门槛附近，养老金并未选择性地留住表现更好的教师。
Abstract
Why do employers offer pensions? We empirically investigate two rationales, namely that they improve worker effort and selectively retain good workers. We test these hypotheses using rich administrative data on effort and output for public school teachers around the pension-eligibility threshold. When teachers cross the threshold, their effective compensation falls by over 50 percent of salary due to sharply reduced pension accruals. Standard economic models predict that this effective pay cut reduces teacher effort and output, but we observe no such decline. This suggests that yearly pension accruals do not meaningfully increase effort. Similarly, if pensions selectively retain better teachers, we would expect average teacher quality to decline when the retentive incentive disappears at the threshold. Instead, we find no change in workforce composition, suggesting pensions do not selectively retain higher-performing teachers around the threshold.