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

dc.contributor.authorGindling, T. H.
dc.contributor.authorHasnain, Zahid
dc.contributor.authorNewhouse, David Locke
dc.contributor.authorShi, Rong
dc.date.accessioned2019-03-13T15:30:35Z
dc.date.available2019-03-13T15:30:35Z
dc.date.issued2019-02-25
dc.description.abstractThis paper examines the public sector wage premium using nationally representative household surveys from 91 countries. The public sector generally pays a wage premium compared to all private sector salaried employees, but the size of the premium is sensitive to the choice of the private sector comparator and varies considerably by worker characteristics. For most countries, the average premium disappears when the public sector is compared to only formal sector private employees, especially when controlling for occupation. The public sector wage premium is higher for women and low-skilled workers. In contrast, high-skilled public sector employees are most often paid the same as their private sector counterparts or may even pay a penalty for working in the public sector. Consistent with this, the public sector premium is greater for employees with less education, those working in lower paid occupations, and those whose earnings fall in the lower part of the conditional earnings distribution. Across countries, the wage premium is only weakly associated with countries' level of development. These findings nuance the existing consensus that public sector workers tend to enjoy a significant wage premium over their private sector counterparts, and that this premium is especially large in low-income countries.en_US
dc.description.urihttps://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3341736en_US
dc.format.extent27 pagesen_US
dc.genrereportsen_US
dc.identifierdoi:10.13016/m2jqkh-8smr
dc.identifier.citationGindling, Thomas and Hasnain, Zahid and Newhouse, David Locke and Shi, Rong, Are Public Sector Workers in Developing Countries Overpaid? Evidence from a New Global Data Set (February 25, 2019). World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 8754. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3341736en_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/11603/13028
dc.language.isoen_USen_US
dc.publisherElsevier Inc.en_US
dc.relation.isAvailableAtThe University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC)
dc.relation.ispartofUMBC Economics Department Collection
dc.relation.ispartofUMBC Faculty Collection
dc.rightsThis item is likely protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. Unless on a Creative Commons license, for uses protected by Copyright Law, contact the copyright holder or the author.
dc.rightsAttribution 3.0 IGO (CC BY 3.0 IGO)*
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo/*
dc.subjectemployment and unemploymenten_US
dc.subjectgender and developmenten_US
dc.subjectlabor marketsen_US
dc.subjecteducational sciencesen_US
dc.titleAre Public Sector Workers in Developing Countries Overpaid? Evidence from a New Global Data Seten_US
dc.typeTexten_US

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