Must-Read: Once again, we have very good and logical theories, but do they work in practice? Is compensation compensation?
: Premium Copayments and the Trade-off between Wages and Employer-Provided Health Insurance: "Using data on Illinois school teachers between 1991 and 2008...
...Teachers paid about 17 percent of the cost of individual health insurance and about 46 percent of the cost of their family members’ plans through premium contributions, but we find no evidence that teachers’ salaries respond to changes in insurance costs. Consistent with a higher willingness to pay for insurance, we find that premium contributions are higher in districts that employ a higher-tenured workforce. We find no evidence that school districts respond to higher health insurance costs by reducing the number of teachers.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167629615000892
I would like to see more evidence on what school districts did to raise money when heath-care costs spiked, and on what school districts did with the windfall when health-care costs did not rise as fast as had been previously anticipated...
