The research proposed below will build on the existing literature by using longitudinal administrative data (including salary data) on public educators from Washington State.

The proposed work will broaden our understanding the relationship between salary spiking behavior and the financial status of state sponsored teacher pension systems and the relationship between salary spiking behavior and plan structures and rules (some of which have changed over time).

We will also contribute to a better understanding of the distributional implications of salary spiking behavior in terms of who benefits and who bears the costs (i.e., which teachers, schools, and districts)