The paper investigates teachers' decisions to leave the profession. First we examine the role of earnings and earnings in alternative occupations in these decisions, and then the paper discusses how the public sector wage increase in 2002 has effected exiting decisions of teachers. Using large...

Public sector employees receive large fractions of their lifetime income in the form of deferred compensation. The introduction of the opportunity provided to Illinois public school employees to purchase additional pension benefits allows me to estimate employees' willingness-to-pay for benefits...