Explaining the Public-Sector Pay Gap: The Role of Skill and College Major

Max Schanzenbach

Journal of Human Capital, 2015, vol. 9, issue 1, 1 - 44

Abstract: This paper reassesses the public-sector pay gap using AFQT score and college major as measures of skill. Among the college educated, there is strong evidence that those with lower skills enter the public sector. In contrast to the private sector, for college-educated public-sector workers, AFQT score is not correlated with pay, and college major is only weakly predictive of pay. Furthermore, simple controls for college major explain most of the public-private-sector pay gap. I conclude that the public-sector pay gap is much smaller than previously estimated and pay rigidities cause significant skill-based selection between the sectors.

Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations Track citations by RSS feed

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/680596 (application/pdf)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/680596 (text/html)
Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ucp:jhucap:doi:10.1086/680596

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Human Capital from University of Chicago Press
Series data maintained by Journals Division ().