Research

Using a hedonic wage framework, this paper estimates compensating wage differentials (CWDs) for teachers in high-poverty and/or high-minority schools, drawing on thirty years of nationally representative data from the School and Staffing Surveys (SASS), National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS), and Common Core of Data (CCD), 1988–2018. We also examine CWDs for teachers with STEM BA degrees and for rural teachers. Results indicate that salaries reflect positive CWDs in high-minority schools but consistent wage penalties in high-poverty schools. STEM BA teachers, despite generally earning a premium, face an additional 0.11% wage penalty for each 1-percentage-point increase in school poverty and an even larger penalty in rural areas. Rural teachers experience an added 0.07% penalty under the same conditions. These findings highlight enduring disparities in teacher compensation by school demographics, subject specialization, and geography, with implications for addressing teacher shortages in disadvantaged settings.

The role of state legislators is important because they draft bills that allocate large budgets and impact the lives of citizens. The quality or effectiveness of legislators can be measured by their educational attainment and occupations. Previous literature has examined the education of leaders, but this paper examines their occupations. The aim of this paper is to explore whether state legislators who are lawyers have proved to be more effective. To examine differences in effectiveness among legislators’ occupations, I use the North Carolina legislature data, which is unique in that they rank all legislators by their effectiveness. I apply the unbalanced panel data of North Carolina legislatures from 1977 to 2014 to the pooled ordinary least squares regression model and fixed effects model. Results show that lawyers rank higher in effectiveness percentile points on average, holding other variables constant. Lawyers in the Senate, on average, rank 8.43 to 9.22 percentile points higher in effectiveness, those in the House rank 15.19 to 15.38 percentile points higher, and, as a whole, in the General Assembly, they rank 11.77 to 12.25 percentile points higher. Although the results show higher effectiveness of one occupation, it is worthy to note that legislature also needs occupations in diverse fields to gain perspectives and expertise in different sectors.

The rational choice model assumes that all voters behave rationally and predicts unrealistically low levels of turnout. Ledyard (1984) argues that somewhere between 0 and 100 percent lies the probability of maximum turnout. I test if a mixed strategy equilibrium of voters exists in local elections in the City of Gainesville and Marion County, both in Florida. My results reject the rational choice model that assumes that votes on each side should be the same or different by one vote to make one's vote pivotal. I use individual-level data of voter registration information and voter history in the City of Gainesville Regular and Runoff elections held between 2011 and 2015. I also use similar data in the City of Ocala and Town of Reddick elections held between 2011 and 2017.