Employment and Wages in the Public Sector: A Cross-Country Study

July 1, 1995

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Employment and Wages in the Public Sector: A Cross-Country Study, (USA: International Monetary Fund, 1995) accessed November 21, 2024

Disclaimer: This Working Paper should not be reported as representing the views of the IMF.The views expressed in this Working Paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the IMF or IMF policy. Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicit comments and to further debate

Summary

We study the determinants of employment and wages in the public sector, using a new set of panel data for 34 LDCs and 21 OECD countries from 1972–992, by estimating equations suggested by an efficiency wage model. We find that government employment is positively associated with the relaxation of resource constraints (the revenue-to-GDP ratio and foreign financing in the case of developing countries and GDP per capita in the case of OECD countries), urbanization, the level of education, and certain countercyclical pressures for government hiring (the real effective exchange rate for developing countries and private employment for OECD countries). Certain measures of government wages are positively associated with government revenues and negatively associated with the level of education, government debt, and countercyclical pressures.

Subject: Civil service, Employment, Labor, Public employment, Public sector wages, Wages

Keywords: Bill equation, Central government, Civil service, Employment, General government employment wage, Government employment, Government employment objective, OECD country, Private sector, Public employment, Public sector wages, Real GDP, Sub-Saharan Africa, Wage bill, Wages, WP

Publication Details

Pages:

52
Volume:

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DOI:

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Issue:

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Series:

Working Paper No. 1995/070
Stock No:

WPIEA0701995
ISBN:

9781451849110
ISSN:

1018-5941

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