Tailoring Civil Service Pay Analysis and Advice to Context : Challenges, Approaches, and the Case of Lao PDR

Barma, Naazneen H. ; Orac, Jana

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: ACCOUNTING;    ACCOUNTING PRACTICES;    AGE GROUPS;    ANALYTICAL APPROACH;    AVERAGE WAGES;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-6744
RP-ID  :  WPS6744

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

The adequacy of compensation forgovernment workers and the affordability of the publicsector wage bill are important concerns for many developingcountries. Suitable pay is considered a necessary -- albeitfar from sufficient -- condition for attracting andretaining skilled public sector staff. This paper makes thecase for conducting fine-grained analysis of pay andcompensation issues in order to enable an accurateassessment of the challenges faced and thereby to generategood-fit reform recommendations that are both principled andfeasible. The first part of the paper focuses on prevalentchallenges in pay reform, both contextual and analytical. Itbuilds on the experiences from three very differentsettings: Armenia, the Lao People s Democratic Republic, andMongolia. The study begins by surveying some of the commondifficulties in conducting granular analysis on civilservice compensation. It then outlines a series ofmethodological approaches that can prove useful indeveloping comprehensive, targeted, and nuanced pay analysesand discusses how it is possible to overcome potentiallimitations in practice. The second half of the paperpresents a case study of pay and compensation analysis inLao PDR. The study illuminates how a number of theseapproaches can be combined in assessing a specific set ofpay challenges and generating robust recommendationstailored to context. A brief postscript, with the benefit ofhindsight on what subsequently happened on the ground in LaoPDR, reflects on the limitations of technical analysis inmotivating reform implementation in practice.