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What Would the Average Public Sector Employee be Paid in the Private Sector?

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Abstract

This paper estimates the average Australian public sector wage premium. It includes a detailed critical review of the methods available to address this issue. The chosen approach is a quasi-differenced panel data model, estimated by the Generalised Method of Moments, which has many advantages over other methods and has not been used before for this topic. I find a positive average public sector wage premium for both sexes. The best estimates are 6.7% for men and 10.5% for women. The estimate is statistically significant for men (p = 0.024) and for women (p

Suggested Citation

  • Siminski, Peter, 2008. "What Would the Average Public Sector Employee be Paid in the Private Sector?," Economics Working Papers wp08-05, School of Economics, University of Wollongong, NSW, Australia.
    • Handle: RePEc:uow:depec1:wp08-05
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    File URL: http://www.uow.edu.au/content/groups/public/@web/@commerce/@econ/documents/doc/uow042466.pdf
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    Cited by:

    1. Clément Imbert, 2011. "Decomposing wage inequality: Public and private sectors in Vietnam 1993-2006," PSE Working Papers halshs-00564653, HAL.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    public sector; wages; premium; panel data; GMM; Australia;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J45 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Public Sector Labor Markets
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J38 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Public Policy

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