The Economics of Teacher Supply

Abstract

This chapter discusses the economics of teacher supply. In its broadest sense, teacher supply means the number of people who, under certain conditions, would be willing to offer their services to the teaching profession. This willingness will depend on a number of factors which can be usefully grouped in two divisions. First, pecuniary factors such as the rates of pay, the expected growth of these rates, and the certainty with which work will be available. Second, nonpecuniary factors such as the characteristics of the job, the social status attached to it, and the environment in which it will have to be performed. Underlying the concept of teacher supply there is a theory of individual behavior and a hypothesis about the distribution of tastes and personal characteristics, which allows the aggregation of individual choices into an overall relationship. Educational authorities have tended to ignore salaries as instruments to eliminate these shortages and have relied to a much larger extent on quantity and quality adjustments to increase the available supply of teachers. Expansion of part-time employment, provision of extra training facilities, and lowering of staffing standards are among the methods most frequently used. This is an important finding because it suggests either that teacher supply is not sensitive to relative wages or, if it is, that educational authorities have in fact ignored potentially useful policy instruments.