HKS Affiliated Authors

Excerpt

Who Pays for Public Employee Health Costs? David Cutler, October 2013, Paper. "We analyze the incidence of public-employee health benefits. Because these benefits are negotiated through the political process, relevant labor market institutions deviate significantly from the competitive, private-sector benchmark. Empirically, we find that roughly 15 percent of the cost of recent benefit growth was passed onto school district employees through reductions in wages and salaries. Strong teachers’ unions were associated with relatively strong linkages between benefit growth and growth in total compensation. We further find..." Link verified August 21, 2014