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The Effect of Employment Protection on Worker Effort: Evidence from Public Schooling

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  • Brian A. Jacob

Abstract

This paper studies the effect of employment protection on worker productivity and firm output in the context of a public school system. In 2004, the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) and Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) signed a new collective bargaining agreement that gave principals the flexibility to dismiss probationary teachers (defined as those with less than five years of experience) for any reason, and without the elaborate documentation and hearing process typical in many large, urban school districts. Results suggest that the policy reduced annual teacher absences by roughly 10 percent and reduced the prevalence of teachers with 15 or more annual absences by 20 percent. The effects were strongest among teachers in elementary schools and in low-achieving, predominantly African-American high schools, and among teachers with highpredicted absences. There is also evidence that the impact of the policy increased substantially after its first year.

Suggested Citation

  • Brian A. Jacob, 2010. "The Effect of Employment Protection on Worker Effort: Evidence from Public Schooling," NBER Working Papers 15655, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:15655
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Moritz Meyer-ter-Vehn & Simon Adrian Board, 2011. "Relational Contracts and On-the-Job Search," 2011 Meeting Papers 1204, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    2. Olsson, Martin, 2013. "Employment Protection and Parental Child Care," Working Paper Series 952, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    3. Larisa Smirnykh, 2016. "Is Flexible Labor Good for Innovation? Evidence from Russian Firm-level Data," Foresight-Russia Форсайт, CyberLeninka;Федеральное государственное автономное образовательное учреждение высшего образования «Национальный исследовательский университет «Высшая школа экономики», vol. 10(4 (eng)), pages 60-70.
    4. Harald Pfeifer, 2014. "Absenteeism in Apprenticeships: What Role Do Works Councils Play?," Economics of Education Working Paper Series 0098, University of Zurich, Department of Business Administration (IBW), revised Aug 2015.
    5. Michael Jones, 2015. "How do teachers respond to tenure?," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 4(1), pages 1-19, December.
    6. Brian A. Jacob, 2010. "Do Principals Fire the Worst Teachers?," NBER Working Papers 15715, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Vegas, Emiliana & Ganimian, Alejandro, 2013. "Theory and Evidence on Teacher Policies in Developed and Developing Countries," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 4597, Inter-American Development Bank.
    8. Tom Ahn, 2015. "Matching strategies of teachers and schools in general equilibrium," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 4(1), pages 1-31, December.
    9. Arndt R. Reichert & Boris Augurzky & Harald Tauchmann, 2015. "Self‐Perceived Job Insecurity And The Demand For Medical Rehabilitation: Does Fear Of Unemployment Reduce Health Care Utilization?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(1), pages 8-25, January.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I20 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - General
    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • I28 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Government Policy
    • J3 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs
    • J45 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Public Sector Labor Markets
    • J5 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining
    • J63 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Turnover; Vacancies; Layoffs

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