IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp8238.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Are Public Sector Workers Different? Cross-European Evidence from Elderly Workers and Retirees

Author

Listed:
  • Tonin, Mirco

    (Free University of Bozen/Bolzano)

  • Vlassopoulos, Michael

    (University of Southampton)

Abstract

The public sector employs a large share of the labor force to execute important functions (e.g. regulation and public good provision) in an environment beset by severe agency problems. Attracting workers who are motivated to serve the public interest is important to mitigate these problems. We investigate whether public and private sector employees differ in terms of their public service motivation, as measured by their propensity to volunteer, using a representative sample of elderly workers from 12 European countries. To overcome potential identification difficulties related to unobservable differences in working conditions (e.g. working time, required effort, job security, career incentives), we also look at retired workers. We find that public sector workers, both those currently employed and those already retired, are significantly more prosocial; however, the difference in prosociality is explained by differences in the composition of the workforce across the two sectors, in terms of (former) workers' education and occupation. Looking across industries and within occupations, we find that former public sector workers in education are more motivated, while there are no differences across the two sectors when considering broad occupational categories. We also investigate other dimensions and find no differences in terms of trust, while there is evidence of some differences in risk aversion, political preferences, life and job satisfaction.

Suggested Citation

  • Tonin, Mirco & Vlassopoulos, Michael, 2014. "Are Public Sector Workers Different? Cross-European Evidence from Elderly Workers and Retirees," IZA Discussion Papers 8238, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
  • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp8238
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp8238.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jan K. Brueckner & David Neumark, 2014. "Beaches, Sunshine, and Public Sector Pay: Theory and Evidence on Amenities and Rent Extraction by Government Workers," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 6(2), pages 198-230, May.
    2. Stephen Knack & Philip Keefer, 1997. "Does Social Capital Have an Economic Payoff? A Cross-Country Investigation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 112(4), pages 1251-1288.
    3. Ernesto Dal Bó & Frederico Finan & Martín A. Rossi, 2013. "Strengthening State Capabilities: The Role of Financial Incentives in the Call to Public Service," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 128(3), pages 1169-1218.
    4. Simon Luechinger & Stephan Meier & Alois Stutzer, 2010. "Why Does Unemployment Hurt the Employed?: Evidence from the Life Satisfaction Gap Between the Public and the Private Sector," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 45(4), pages 998-1045.
    5. Umar M. A. Boodoo & Rafael Gomez & Morley Gunderson, 2014. "Relative income, absolute income and the life satisfaction of older adults: do retirees differ from the non-retired?," Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(4), pages 281-299, July.
    6. Rema Hanna & Shing-Yi Wang, 2013. "Dishonesty and Selection into Public Service," NBER Working Papers 19649, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Jakob Svensson, 2005. "Eight Questions about Corruption," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(3), pages 19-42, Summer.
    8. Mazzonna, Fabrizio & Peracchi, Franco, 2012. "Ageing, cognitive abilities and retirement," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(4), pages 691-710.
    9. Alois Stutzer, 2008. "Bureaucratic Rents and Life Satisfaction," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 24(2), pages 476-488, October.
    10. Elsa Pilichowski & Emmanuelle Arnould & Edouard Turkisch, 2008. "Ageing and the Public Sector: Challenges for Financial and Human Resources," OECD Journal on Budgeting, OECD Publishing, vol. 7(4), pages 1-40.
    11. Mirco Tonin & Michael Vlassopoulos, 2015. "Are public sector workers different? Cross-European evidence from elderly workers and retirees," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 4(1), pages 1-21, December.
    12. Dimitris Christelis & Dimitris Georgarakos & Michael Haliassos, 2013. "Differences in Portfolios across Countries: Economic Environment versus Household Characteristics," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(1), pages 220-236, March.
    13. Christelis, Dimitris & Jappelli, Tullio & Padula, Mario, 2010. "Cognitive abilities and portfolio choice," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 18-38, January.
    14. Timothy Besley & Maitreesh Ghatak, 2003. "Incentives, Choice, and Accountability in the Provision of Public Services," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 19(2), pages 235-249, Summer.
    15. Courant, Paul N & Gramlich, Edward M & Rubinfeld, Daniel L, 1979. "Public Employee Market Power and the Level of Government Spending," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 69(5), pages 806-817, December.
    16. Thomas Dohmen & Armin Falk, 2010. "You Get What You Pay For: Incentives and Selection in the Education System," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 120(546), pages 256-271, August.
    17. Gregg, Paul & Grout, Paul A. & Ratcliffe, Anita & Smith, Sarah & Windmeijer, Frank, 2011. "How important is pro-social behaviour in the delivery of public services?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7), pages 758-766.
    18. Susann Rohwedder & Robert J. Willis, 2010. "Mental Retirement," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 24(1), pages 119-138, Winter.
    19. Edd Cowley & Sarah Smith, 2014. "Motivation and mission in the public sector: evidence from the World Values Survey," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 76(2), pages 241-263, February.
    20. Timothy Besley & Maitreesh Ghatak, 2005. "Competition and Incentives with Motivated Agents," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 616-636, June.
    21. Josse Delfgaauw & Robert Dur, 2008. "Incentives and Workers’ Motivation in the Public Sector," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(525), pages 171-191, January.
    22. Bruno Frey & Werner Pommerehne, 1982. "How powerful are public bureaucrats as voters?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 38(3), pages 253-262, January.
    23. Luigi Guiso & Paola Sapienza & Luigi Zingales, 2009. "Cultural Biases in Economic Exchange?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 124(3), pages 1095-1131.
    24. George J. Borjas, 2002. "The Wage Structure and the Sorting of Workers into the Public Sector," NBER Working Papers 9313, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    25. Banuri, Sheheryar & Keefer, Philip, 2013. "Intrinsic motivation, effort and the call to public service," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6729, The World Bank.
    26. Laura Crespo & Pedro Mira, 2014. "Caregiving to Elderly Parents and Employment Status of European Mature Women," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 96(4), pages 693-709, October.
    27. Nicholas Bloom & Raffaella Sadun, 2012. "The Organization of Firms Across Countries," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 127(4), pages 1663-1705.
    28. Jovanovic, Boyan, 1979. "Job Matching and the Theory of Turnover," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(5), pages 972-990, October.
    29. Buurman, Margaretha & Delfgaauw, Josse & Dur, Robert & Van den Bossche, Seth, 2012. "Public sector employees: Risk averse and altruistic?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 83(3), pages 279-291.
    30. Iris Kesternich & Bettina Siflinger & James P. Smith & Joachim K. Winter, 2014. "The Effects of World War II on Economic and Health Outcomes across Europe," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 96(1), pages 103-118, March.
    31. Oriana Bandiera & Andrea Prat & Tommaso Valletti, 2009. "Active and Passive Waste in Government Spending: Evidence from a Policy Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(4), pages 1278-1308, September.
    32. Iris Kesternich & Bettina Siflinger & James P. Smith & Joachim K. Winter, 2014. "The Effects of World War II on Economic and Health Outcomes across Europe," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, pages 103-118.
    33. Giorgio Brunello & Margherita Fort & Guglielmo Weber, 2009. "Changes in Compulsory Schooling, Education and the Distribution of Wages in Europe," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(536), pages 516-539, March.
    34. Viola Angelini & Agar Brugiavini & Guglielmo Weber, 2014. "The dynamics of homeownership among the 50+ in Europe," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 27(3), pages 797-823, July.
    35. Don Bellante & Albert N. Link, 1981. "Are Public Sector Workers More Risk Averse Than Private Sector Workers?," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 34(3), pages 408-412, April.
    36. Francois, Patrick, 2000. "'Public service motivation' as an argument for government provision," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(3), pages 275-299, November.
    37. Åsa Ahlin & Eva Johansson, 2001. "Individual Demand for Local Public Schooling: Evidence from Swedish Survey Data," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 8(4), pages 331-351, August.
    38. Patrick Francois & Michael Vlassopoulos, 2008. "Pro-social Motivation and the Delivery of Social Services," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo, vol. 54(1), pages 22-54, March.
    39. Avinash Dixit, 2002. "# Incentives and Organizations in the Public Sector: An Interpretative Review," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 37(4), pages 696-727.
    40. Corey, Elizabeth C & Garand, James C, 2002. "Are Government Employees More Likely to Vote?: An Analysis of Turnout in the 1996 U.S. National Election," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 111(3-4), pages 259-283, June.
    41. Nava Ashraf & Oriana Bandiera & Scott Lee, 2014. "Do-gooders and go-getters: career incentives, selection, and performance in public service delivery," STICERD - Economic Organisation and Public Policy Discussion Papers Series 54, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.
    42. Edward M. Gramlich & Daniel L. Rubinfeld, 1982. "Voting on public spending: Differences between public employees, transfer recipients, and private workers," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 1(4), pages 516-533.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mirco Tonin & Michael Vlassopoulos, 2015. "Are public sector workers different? Cross-European evidence from elderly workers and retirees," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 4(1), pages 1-21, December.
    2. Catherine Eckel & Lata Gangadharan & Philip J. Grossman & Nina Xue, 2021. "The gender leadership gap: insights from experiments," Chapters, in: Ananish Chaudhuri (ed.), A Research Agenda for Experimental Economics, chapter 7, pages 137-162, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    3. Pierre Cahuc & Stéphane Carcillo & Andreea Minea & Marie-Anne Valfort, 2019. "When Correspondence Studies Fail to Detect Hiring Discrimination," Working Papers hal-03881646, HAL.
    4. Dur, Robert & van Lent, Max, 2018. "Serving the public interest in several ways: Theory and empirics," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 13-24.
    5. Mirco Tonin, 2020. "Are workers motivated by the greater good?," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 138-138, July.
    6. Mikula, Stepan & Montag, Josef, 2023. "Roma and Bureaucrats: A Field Experiment on Ethnic and Socioeconomic Discrimination," IZA Discussion Papers 16218, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Brigitte Granville & Jaume Martorell Cruz, 2016. "Squared Segmentation: How the Insider/Outsider divide across Public/Private Employment shapes attitudes towards markets," Working Papers 78, Queen Mary, University of London, School of Business and Management, Centre for Globalisation Research.
    8. Renfu Luo & Grant Miller & Scott Rozelle & Sean Sylvia & Marcos Vera-Hernández, 2015. "Can Bureaucrats Really Be Paid Like CEOs? School Administrator Incentives for Anemia Reduction in Rural China," NBER Working Papers 21302, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Lucia Rizzica, 2016. "Why go public? A study of the individual determinants of public sector employment choice," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 343, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    10. Naoko Okuyama & Mototsugu Fukushige, 2021. "Limited Prosocial Response: Post‐Disaster Charitable Behavior of Public Sector Workers," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 74(1), pages 77-102, February.
    11. Peter Backus & Alejandro Esteller-Moré, 2014. "Is income redistribution a form of insurance, a public good or both?," Working Papers 2014/33, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    12. Štěpán Mikula & Josef Montag, 2022. "Roma and Bureaucrats: A Field Experiment in the Czech Republic," MUNI ECON Working Papers 2022-01, Masaryk University, revised Feb 2023.
    13. Peter G. Backus & Alejandro Esteller-Moré, 2017. "Risk aversion and inequity aversion in demand for unemployment benefits," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 24(2), pages 198-220, April.
    14. Peter Backus & Alejandro Esteller-Moré, 2014. "Is income redistribution a form of insurance, a public good or both?," Working Papers 2014/33, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).

    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. Lucia Rizzica, 2016. "Why go public? A study of the individual determinants of public sector employment choice," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 343, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    2. Banuri, Sheheryar & Keefer, Philip, 2016. "Pro-social motivation, effort and the call to public service," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 139-164.
    3. Dur, Robert & van Lent, Max, 2018. "Serving the public interest in several ways: Theory and empirics," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 13-24.
    4. Buurman, Margaretha & Delfgaauw, Josse & Dur, Robert & Van den Bossche, Seth, 2012. "Public sector employees: Risk averse and altruistic?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 83(3), pages 279-291.
    5. Dur Robert & Zoutenbier Robin, 2015. "Intrinsic Motivations of Public Sector Employees: Evidence for Germany," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 16(3), pages 343-366, August.
    6. Valasek, Justin, 2018. "Dynamic reform of public institutions: A model of motivated agents and collective reputation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 94-108.
    7. Margaretha Buurman & Robert Dur, 2012. "Incentives and the Sorting of Altruistic Agents into Street-Level Bureaucracies," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 114(4), pages 1318-1345, December.
    8. Mirco Tonin, 2020. "Are workers motivated by the greater good?," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 138-138, July.
    9. Banuri, Sheheryar & Keefer, Philip, 2013. "Intrinsic motivation, effort and the call to public service," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6729, The World Bank.
    10. Barigozzi, Francesca & Manna, Ester, 2020. "Envy in mission-oriented organisations," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 395-424.
    11. Delfgaauw, Josse & Dur, Robert, 2010. "Managerial talent, motivation, and self-selection into public management," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(9-10), pages 654-660, October.
    12. Fehrler, Sebastian & Kosfeld, Michael, 2014. "Pro-social missions and worker motivation: An experimental study," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 99-110.
    13. Peter Birch Sørensen, 2015. "Reforming Public Service Provision: What have we learned?," EPRU Working Paper Series 2015-01, Economic Policy Research Unit (EPRU), University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    14. Stijn VAN PUYVELDE & Marc JEGERS, 2016. "Heterogeneity and self-selection into nonprofit management," CIRIEC Working Papers 1603, CIRIEC - Université de Liège.
    15. Gerhards, Leonie, 2015. "The incentive effects of missions—Evidence from experiments with NGO employees and students," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 252-262.
    16. Frederico Finan & Benjamin A. Olken & Rohini Pande, 2015. "The Personnel Economics of the State," NBER Working Papers 21825, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Dietrichson, Jens, 2013. "Coordination Incentives, Performance Measurement and Resource Allocation in Public Sector Organizations," Working Papers 2013:26, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    18. Mirco Tonin & Michael Vlassopoulos, 2009. "Disentangling the sources of pro-social behavior in the workplace: A field experiment," Natural Field Experiments 00313, The Field Experiments Website.
    19. Ayaita Adam & Yang Philip & Gülal Filiz, 2019. "Where Does the Good Shepherd Go? Civic Virtue and Sorting into Public Sector Employment," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 20(4), pages 571-599, December.
    20. Kampkötter, Patrick & Petters, Lea M. & Sliwka, Dirk, 2021. "Employee identification and wages – on the economics of “Affective Commitment”," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 608-626.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    life satisfaction; trust; risk aversion; public service motivation; public sector; volunteering;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D64 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Altruism; Philanthropy; Intergenerational Transfers
    • H83 - Public Economics - - Miscellaneous Issues - - - Public Administration
    • J45 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Public Sector Labor Markets

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:iza:izadps:dp8238. 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.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.