Linda S. Ghent

Phasing into Retirement

To help workers navigate the transition from work to retirement more effectively, employers have been launching phased retirement programs, which allow older employees to work part-time and receive full retirement benefits. This paper examines the experience of the phased retirement system for tenured faculty in the University of North Carolina system over the years 1996–98. After phased retirement was introduced, there was a sizable increase in the overall separation rate in the system. The key finding from an empirical analysis of the retirement decision as a function of pension incentives, employee performance, demographics, and campus characteristics is that the odds of entering phased retirement were strongly and inversely related to employee performance, as measured by recent pay increases.

The Impact of a New Phased Retirement Option on Faculty Retirement Decisions

Life-cycle theory suggests that workers would prefer to gradually enter retirement from their career jobs. Using data from 15 campuses of the University of North Carolina system, this study provides a first look at the effects of the introduction of a phased retirement program on faculty retirement decisions. The authors’ analysis indicates that most of the faculty members choosing phased retirement would have likely remained full-time at their universities if the phased retirement option had not been available.

Pension Plan Choice among University Faculty

A pension plan is an important component of lifetime earnings, and thus the decision between a defined benefit pension and a defined contribution pension is an important one. This study uses data from annual faculty censuses of the University of North Carolina system, where new hires are given a choice between a state defined benefit pension and a defined contribution plan. Newly hired faculty members who are older, female, and nonwhite are found to be more likely to choose the defined benefit plan. Some differences across university Carnegie classification are also seen. In addition, a declining trend in defined benefit participation is shown.

TV for Economics

URL: http://www.tvforecon.blogspot.com/ The TV for Economics Web site catalogs more than 80 television scenes of interest to economic educators. Although there is a substantial literature on the us...

Mandatory Retirement and Faculty Retirement Decisions

As a result of the 1986 Age Discrimination in Employment Act, colleges and universities were no longer allowed to impose mandatory retirement on faculty members at age seventy after 1994. This paper estimates the change in retirement rates of faculty before and after the ending of mandatory retirement using data from the University of North Carolina (UNC) system. The analysis reveals a sharp decline in the probability of faculty at UNC retiring at age seventy once the university was unable to impose forced retirement.

Estimating the extent of cross-border lottery shopping: evidence from South Carolina

The South Carolina Education Lottery (SCEL) began selling tickets in 2001. Early studies indicate significant cross-border shopping, especially in counties bordering North Carolina (NC), which created its own lottery in 2006. We examine the impact of the North Carolina Education Lottery (NCEL) on sales of lottery tickets in South Carolina (SC). We find that the introduction of the NCEL coincides with a significant drop in lottery sales in SC counties bordering NC. By creating its own lottery, NC successfully redirected the flow of lottery dollars to its own coffers.

Worker Payments and Incentives: A Classroom Experiment

This classroom experiment demonstrates the effects of time-based pay and output-based pay on worker behavior and productivity. Students will discover that workers paid a piece rate per unit produced will have incentives to work harder, but will sacrifice quality for increased quantity of output. In addition, workers will self-sort into jobs with different payment systems based on expected productivity and effort. Last, while labor costs per unit at firms offering output-based pay are generally lower than those at other firms, students will understand some of the reasons why this method of payment may not be widely used across occupations and industries. The paper concludes with several suggestions for extending the experiment to expand its illustrative value in a variety of economics courses.