Going subnational: Wage differentials across levels of government in Brazil, Mexico, and Uruguay

Maria Josefina Baez, Pablo Brassiolo, Ricardo Estrada and Gustavo Fajardo

World Development, 2022, vol. 160, issue C

Abstract: Workers at subnational governments play a prominent role in the delivery of public services in most countries. Yet, information about their remuneration is scarce. Using data for Brazil, Mexico and Uruguay, we document that national government employees earn on average higher wages than observationally similar subnational employees; consequently, public–private sector wage gaps vary significantly by level of government. Then we use individual fixed-effects to estimate the wage premium to public sector employment (the wage gap net of selection effects) for Brazil and Mexico. We find that (i) both national and subnational public employees receive a significant wage premium with respect to private sector employment; and (ii) the difference between the national and subnational wage premiums is small in Brazil and null in Mexico.

Keywords: Public sector wage premium; Subnational governments; Brazil; Mexico; Uruguay (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H70 J31 J45 M50 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Working Paper: Going subnational: wage differentials across levels of government in Brazil, Mexico and Uruguay (2021)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:160:y:2022:i:c:s0305750x22002753

DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2022.106085

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