Returns to Skills and Personnel Management: U.S. DoD Scientists and Engineers

Michael Gibbs

No 1539, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Personnel records are used to examine compensation, recruitment, and retention of a group of very highly skilled workers: civilian scientists and engineers in U.S. Department of Defense laboratories. In contrast to the private sector, returns to skills were largely flat for this group from 1982-1996. Despite this, quality and performance of recruits relative to earlier cohorts, and of those retained relative to those who left, remained stable. One explanation is the importance of defense-industry-specific human capital. These results hold for three different pay plans, including the federal government’s primary plan and two intended to introduce greater flexibility in personnel management.

Keywords: returns to skills; personnel; workforce quality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J24 J31 J44 J45 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30 pages
Date: 2005-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published - published in: Economic Inquiry, 2006, 44(2), 199-214

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp1539.pdf (application/pdf)

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:iza:izadps:dp1539

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().