published in: Brussels Economic Review / Cahiers Economiques de Bruxelles, 2004, 47 (3), 387-408
In order to learn more about the wage elasticity of the teacher supply in Switzerland, this
paper estimates wages for teachers and non-teachers. The data used are ten surveys of
graduates of all Swiss universities for the period of 1981-1999. The data allows us to
estimate the wage elasticity for entry wages of upper secondary school teachers. In the
cases examined, the wage differential is highly significant and shows a wage elasticity for the
teacher supply of 0.12% to 0.18%. This elasticity is substantially lower than what has been
found in the literature for other countries. It is probably due to the fact that teachers’ salaries
are generally high in Switzerland - teachers here enjoy a positive wage differential over those
in other occupations, the opposite of what is normally the situation elsewhere.
We use cookies to provide you with an optimal website experience. This includes cookies that are necessary for the operation of the site as well as cookies that are only used for anonymous statistical purposes, for comfort settings or to display personalized content. You can decide for yourself which categories you want to allow. Please note that based on your settings, you may not be able to use all of the site's functions.
Cookie settings
These necessary cookies are required to activate the core functionality of the website. An opt-out from these technologies is not available.
In order to further improve our offer and our website, we collect anonymous data for statistics and analyses. With the help of these cookies we can, for example, determine the number of visitors and the effect of certain pages on our website and optimize our content.