IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/1653.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

How do Public Sector Wages and Employment Respond to Economic Conditions

Author

Listed:
  • Richard B. Freeman

Abstract

This paper examines the changes over time in public sector wages and employment relative to private sector wages and employment using data from surveys of establishments and individuals. The paper finds that:(1) The pay of public sector workers relative to private sector workers varies greatly over time. Contrary to the view that public sector payis inflexible, variations in relative pay are due as much to fluctuations in public pay as to fluctuations in private pay.(2) The relatively high paid public sector worker of the early 1970s has within the span of a decade lost much of his or her advantage over otherwise comparable private sector workers, seriously denting if not destroying the picture of the 'overpaid' public employee which developed in the early 1970s.The group of public sector workers who tend to be most highly paid in the U.S. relative to private sector workers are blacks and women, suggesting that the public sector discriminates less than does the private sector.(3) Differentials in public and private sector pay vary greatly depending on the nature of comparisons, with for example Current Populations Survey comparisons of individuals with similar broad human capital showing federal employees to be higher paid than private employees and Bureau of Labor Statistics surveys of wage rates in particular occupations showing federal workers to be lower paid.(4) Public sector employment follows a very different pattern of change than private sector employment. It has smaller annual variation, and moves counter cyclically rather than cyclically. In terms of demographic composition the public sector employs relatively more blacks and women than the private sector.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard B. Freeman, 1985. "How do Public Sector Wages and Employment Respond to Economic Conditions," NBER Working Papers 1653, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:1653
    Note: LS
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w1653.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bergstrom, Theodore C & Goodman, Robert P, 1973. "Private Demands for Public Goods," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 63(3), pages 280-296, June.
    2. Ehrenberg, Ronald G, 1973. "The Demand for State and Local Government Employees," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 63(3), pages 366-379, June.
    3. 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.
    4. Freeman, Richard B, 1986. "Unionism Comes to the Public Sector," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 24(1), pages 41-86, March.
    5. Borjas, George J, 1980. "Wage Determination in the Federal Government: The Role of Constituents and Bureaucrats," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(6), pages 1110-1147, December.
    6. Smith, Sharon P., 1977. "Government wage differentials," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 4(3), pages 248-271, July.
    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. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pc:p:3573-3630 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. 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.
    3. Garibaldi, Pietro & Gomes, Pedro & Sopraseuth, Thepthida, 2021. "Public employment redux," Journal of Government and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 1(C).
    4. Keith A. Bender, 1998. "The Central Government‐Private Sector Wage Differential," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 12(2), pages 177-220, April.
    5. Bergstrom, Pal & Dahlberg, Matz & Mork, Eva, 2004. "The effects of grants and wages on municipal labour demand," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 315-334, June.
    6. Richard B. Freeman & Robert G. Valletta, 1987. "The Effect of Public Sector Labor laws on Collective Bargaining, Wages, and Employment," NBER Working Papers 2284, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Richard B. Freeman & Robert Valletta, 1988. "The Effects of Public Sector Labor Laws on Labor Market Institutions and Outcomes," NBER Chapters, in: When Public Sector Workers Unionize, pages 81-106, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. 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.
    9. Bergström, Pål & Dahlberg, Matz & Johansson, Eva, 1998. "Municipal labour demand," Working Paper Series 1998:1, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    10. Bergstrom, P. & Dahlberg, M. & Johansson, E., 1998. "Municipal Labour Demand. Sweden 1988-1995," Papers 1998:24, Uppsala - Working Paper Series.
    11. Jan Brueckner & Kevin O'Brien, 1989. "Modeling government behavior in collective bargaining: A test for self-interested bureaucrats," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 63(1), pages 15-41, October.
    12. Witterblad, Mikael, 2008. "Essays on Redistribution and Local Public Expenditures," Umeå Economic Studies 731, Umeå University, Department of Economics.
    13. Freeman, Richard B, 1986. "Unionism Comes to the Public Sector," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 24(1), pages 41-86, March.
    14. Ricardo Hausmann & Ljubica Nedelkoska & Sehar Noor, 2020. "You Get What You Pay For: Sources and Consequences of the Public Sector Premium in Albania and Sri Lanka," CID Working Papers 376, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    15. Steven Craig & Robert P. Inman, 1986. "Education, Welfare and the "New" Federalism: State Budgeting in a Federalist Public Economy," NBER Chapters, in: Studies in State and Local Public Finance, pages 187-228, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. 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.
    17. Witterblad, Mikael, 2008. "The Demand for Local Public Services in Sweden," Umeå Economic Studies 730, Umeå University, Department of Economics.
    18. Laszlo Goerke, 1998. "Privatization and efficiency wages," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 67(3), pages 243-264, October.
    19. Rolf Aaberge & Audun Langørgen, 1997. "Fiscal and Spending Behavior of Local Governments: An Empirical Analysis Based on Norwegian Data," Discussion Papers 196, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    20. Jacob De Rooy, 1982. "Local Taxes and Personal Income: an Impact Analysis," Public Finance Review, , vol. 10(4), pages 457-478, October.
    21. Ehrenberg, Ronald G. & Schwarz, Joshua L., 1987. "Public-sector labor markets," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & R. Layard (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 22, pages 1219-1260, Elsevier.

    More about this item

    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:nbr:nberwo:1653. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.