Do teacher shortages harm students? Teacher labor market tightening, teacher mobility and the quality of education

Little is known about the impact of teacher shortages on teacher mobility, or on the determinants of teacher mobility. It is also unclear how teacher mobility in a tight teacher labor market impacts education quality. This paper, using teacher and student microdata in regression models with school fixed effects, provides evidence that teacher shortages have an impact on teacher mobility determinants. Teachers are more likely to move from schools with a high share of disadvantaged students and from schools in urban areas in a tight teacher labor market. Subsequently, teacher mobility is found to have a negative effect on the quality of education. Thereby, the proportion of young teachers in schools with above average turnover seems to increase when teacher turnover increases and the teacher labor market is tight. Despite that teacher turnover is found to have a negative effect on student test scores, analyses do not provide conclusive evidence that the effect is amplified in a tight teacher labor market.