IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/boi/wpaper/2014.03.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The development of wages in the public sector and their connection with wages in the private sector

Author

Listed:
  • Yuval Mazar

    (Bank of Israel)

Abstract

This study finds that there is a long-term connection between the development of wages in the public sector and in the private sector. Since 1999, after the wage gap between the two sectors was closed, the short-term connections also became much stronger. During these years, wages in both sectors moved in tandem, with wages in one of them affecting wages in the other. During the 1990s, public sector wages led developments in private sector wages, and in the economy as a whole. While wage creep in the public sector has had low variance over the years, and is not affected by business cycles, most of the significant wage agreements in the public sector track private sector wage trends, are procyclical, and other than two agreements in the mid-1990s, they expand when the fiscal deficit is low and contract when it is high. The wage agreements themselves are responsible for about one-third of total real growth in employee wages in the public sector, and there is an almost perfect correlation between them and the overall change in employee wages in the public sector. Essentially, the wage agreements signed in the public sector since 1999 are responsible for the strong correlation between wages in the public sector and wages in the private sector. Since the 1990s, the average wage in the public sector, adjusted to workers' characteristics, has increased by less than the average wage in the private sector, while the wage increase for workers who remained employed was similar in both sectors.

Suggested Citation

  • Yuval Mazar, 2014. "The development of wages in the public sector and their connection with wages in the private sector," Bank of Israel Working Papers 2014.03, Bank of Israel.
    • Handle: RePEc:boi:wpaper:2014.03
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://boiwebrepec.azurefd.net/RePEc/boi/wpaper/WP_2014.03.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2014
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Javier Pérez & A. Sánchez, 2011. "Is there a signalling role for public wages? Evidence for the euro area based on macro data," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 41(2), pages 421-445, October.
    2. Dimitri G. Demekas & Zenon G. Kontolemis, 2000. "Government Employment and Wages and Labour Market Performance," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 62(3), pages 391-415, July.
    3. Ardagna, Silvia, 2007. "Fiscal policy in unionized labor markets," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 31(5), pages 1498-1534, May.
    4. Holmlund, B. & Ohlsson, H., 1990. "Wage Linkages Between Private and Public Sectors," Papers 1990t, Uppsala - Working Paper Series.
    5. Gregory, Robert G. & Borland, Jeff, 1999. "Recent developments in public sector labor markets," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 53, pages 3573-3630, Elsevier.
    6. Alberto Alesina & Silvia Ardagna & Roberto Perotti & Fabio Schiantarelli, 2002. "Fiscal Policy, Profits, and Investment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(3), pages 571-589, June.
    7. Jacobson, Tor & Ohlsson, Henry, 1994. "Long-Run Relations between Private and Public Sector Wages in Sweden," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 19(3), pages 343-360.
    8. J. Lindquist & Roger Vilhelmsson, 2006. "Is the Swedish central government a wage leader?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(14), pages 1617-1625.
    9. Yuval Mazar, 2011. "Chapter 5 Workers’ Mobility and the Return to Education, Evidence from Public and Private Sectors," Research in Labor Economics, in: Research in Labor Economics, pages 175-208, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    10. Strom, Bjarne, 1995. "Envy, Fairness and Political Influence in Local Government Wage Determination: Evidence from Norway," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 62(247), pages 389-409, August.
    11. Ardagna, Silvia, 2007. "Fiscal Policy in Unionized Labor Markets," Scholarly Articles 2580048, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    12. Oaxaca, Ronald, 1973. "Male-Female Wage Differentials in Urban Labor Markets," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 14(3), pages 693-709, October.
    13. Kent Friberg, 2007. "Intersectoral wage linkages: the case of Sweden," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 32(1), pages 161-184, April.
    14. repec:hrv:faseco:3353756 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Lorenzo Forni & Raffaela Giordano, 2003. "Employment in the Public Sector," CESifo Working Paper Series 1085, CESifo.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lamo, Ana & Schuknecht, Ludger & Pérez, Javier J., 2008. "Public and private sector wages: co-movement and causality," Working Paper Series 963, European Central Bank.
    2. Javier Pérez & A. Sánchez, 2011. "Is there a signalling role for public wages? Evidence for the euro area based on macro data," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 41(2), pages 421-445, October.
    3. Gaetano D’Adamo, 2014. "Wage spillovers across sectors in Eastern Europe," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 47(2), pages 523-552, September.
    4. Camarero, Mariam & D'Adamo, Gaetano & Tamarit, Cecilio, 2014. "Wage leadership models: A country-by-country analysis of the EMU," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 44(S1), pages 2-11.
    5. Afonso, António & Gomes, Pedro, 2014. "Interactions between private and public sector wages," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 39(PA), pages 97-112.
    6. Ana Lamo & Javier J. Pérez & Ludger Schuknecht, 2012. "Public or Private Sector Wage Leadership? An International Perspective," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 114(1), pages 228-244, March.
    7. Gonzalo Fernández-de-Córdoba & Javier Pérez & José Torres, 2012. "Public and private sector wages interactions in a general equilibrium model," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 150(1), pages 309-326, January.
    8. Vasilev, Aleksandar, 2013. "Essays on Real Business Cycle Modeling and the Public Sector," EconStor Theses, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, number 130522, October.
    9. Lamo, Ana & Pérez, Javier J. & Schuknecht, Ludger, 2013. "Are government wages interlinked with private sector wages?," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 35(5), pages 697-712.
    10. Javier J. Perez & Ana Lamo & Enrique Moral-Benito, 2015. "Does Slack Influence Public and Private Labor Market," EcoMod2015 8792, EcoMod.
    11. Vasilev, Aleksandar, 2013. "Fiscal policy in a Real-Business-Cycle model with labor-intensive government services and endogenous public sector wages and hours," EconStor Preprints 142338, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    12. Jelena Lausev, 2014. "WHAT HAS 20 YEARS OF PUBLIC–PRIVATE PAY GAP LITERATURE TOLD US? EASTERN EUROPEAN TRANSITIONING vs. DEVELOPED ECONOMIES," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(3), pages 516-550, July.
    13. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pc:p:3573-3630 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Gregory, Robert G. & Borland, Jeff, 1999. "Recent developments in public sector labor markets," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 53, pages 3573-3630, Elsevier.
    15. M. Ivanova., 2015. "The Interaction between Public and Private Sector Wages," VOPROSY ECONOMIKI, N.P. Redaktsiya zhurnala "Voprosy Economiki", vol. 7.
    16. Annette Zeilstra & Adam Elbourne, 2014. "Follow the leader? Public and private wages in the Netherlands," CPB Discussion Paper 274, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis.
    17. Benedicta Marzinotto & Alessandro Turrini, 2017. "Co-movements between public and private wages in the EU: what factors and with what policy implications?," IZA Journal of European Labor Studies, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 6(1), pages 1-16, December.
    18. Guilherme Bandeira & Evi Pappa & Rana Sajedi & Eugenia Vella, 2018. "Fiscal Consolidation in a Low-Inflation Environment: Pay Cuts versus Lost Jobs," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 14(3), pages 7-52, June.
    19. George Economides & Dimitris Papageorgiou & Apostolis Philippopoulos & Vanghelis Vassilatos, 2013. "Smaller Public Sectors in the Euro Area: Aggregate and Distributional Implications," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 59(3), pages 536-558, September.
    20. Chibi Abderrahim & Chekouri Sidi Mohamed & Benbouziane Mohamed, 2019. "The Impact of Fiscal Policy on Economic Activity over the Business Cycle: An Empirical Investigation in the Case of Algeria," Review of Middle East Economics and Finance, De Gruyter, vol. 15(3), pages 1-23, December.
    21. Vitor Carvalho & Manuel M. F. Martins, 2011. "Investment and output effects of fiscal consolidations in a new-Keynesian DSGE model for the Euro Area: composition matters?," EcoMod2011 3246, EcoMod.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Private Sector; Public Sector; Wage Development; Comovement;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J39 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Other

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:boi:wpaper:2014.03. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Yossi Yakhin (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/boigvil.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.