IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jogoec/v1y2021ics2667319321000021.html

(Why) Is There a Public/Private Pay Gap?

Author

Listed:
  • Makridis, Christos A.

Abstract

The government is facing a severe shortage of skilled workers. The conventional wisdom in branches of policy and public administration is that the shortage is driven by low salaries that are not competitive for attracting top talent. Using longitudinal data on high skilled workers between 1993 and 2013, this paper shows that, if anything, government employees earn more than their private sector counterparts. Although government workers tend to earn less in the raw data, these differences are driven by the correlation between unobserved productivity and selection into private sector jobs. Instead, this paper provides empirical evidence that low non-pecuniary amenities, such as development opportunities and management, can explain earnings differences between the public and private sectors.

Suggested Citation

  • Makridis, Christos A., 2021. "(Why) Is There a Public/Private Pay Gap?," Journal of Government and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 1(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jogoec:v:1:y:2021:i:c:s2667319321000021
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jge.2021.100002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2667319321000021
    Download Restriction: Gold Open Access journal
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jge.2021.100002?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Christos A. Makridis & Barry T. Hirsch, 2021. "The Labor Market Earnings of Veterans: Is Military Experience More or Less Valuable than Civilian Experience?," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 42(3), pages 303-333, December.
    2. Makridis, Christos A. & McGuire, Erin, 2023. "The quality of innovation “Booms” during “Busts”," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(1).
    3. Alessandra Fenizia & Christos A. Makridis, 2026. "Personnel Reform and the Federal Workforce," CESifo Working Paper Series 12517, CESifo.
    4. Morris M. Kleiner & Wenchen Wang, 2026. "The Labor Market Effects of Occupational Licensing in the Public Sector," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 65(2), pages 200-229, April.
    5. repec:lje:journl:v:27:y:2022:i:2:p:39-64 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Van‐Phuc Phan & Martin O'Brien, 2025. "Is There a Public Sector Wage Premium in Vietnam? New Evidence From the Vietnam Household Living Standard Survey," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 64(3), pages 345-355, September.
    7. Cristina Pita & Ramón J. Torregrosa, 2023. "The Education-Job Satisfaction Paradox in the Public Sector," Public Organization Review, Springer, vol. 23(4), pages 1717-1735, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:eee:jogoec:v:1:y:2021:i:c:s2667319321000021. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-government-and-economics .

    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.