Are Public Sector Workers in Developing Countries Overpaid? Evidence from a New Global Data Set

Gindling, T. H. ; Hasnain, Zahid ; Newhouse, David ; Shi, Rong

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: WAGES;    LABOR MARKET;    PUBLIC SECTOR EMPLOYMENT;    LOW-SKILLED WORKER;    EARNINGS DISTRIBUTION;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-8754
RP-ID  :  WPS8754

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

This paper examines the public sectorwage premium using nationally representative householdsurveys from 91 countries.The public sector generally paysa wage premium compared to all private sector salariedemployees, but the size of the premium is sensitive to thechoice of the private sector comparator and variesconsiderably by worker characteristics. For most countries,the average premium disappears when the public sector iscompared to only formal sector private employees, especiallywhen controlling for occupation. The public sector wagepremium is higher for women and low-skilled workers. Incontrast, high-skilled public sector employees are mostoften paid the same as their private sector counterparts ormay even pay a penalty for working in the public sector.Consistent with this, the public sector premium is greaterfor employees with less education, those working in lowerpaid occupations, and those whose earnings fall in the lowerpart of the conditional earnings distribution. Acrosscountries, the wage premium is only weakly associated withcountries’ level of development. These findings nuance theexisting consensus that public sector workers tend to enjoya significant wage premium over their private sectorcounterparts, and that this premium is especially large inlow-income countries.