Risk Aversion and Sorting into Public Sector Employment

Christian Pfeifer ()

No 3503, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This research note uses two German data sets – the large-scale German Socio-Economic Panel and unique data from own student questionnaires – to analyse the relationship between risk aversion and the choice for public sector employment. Main results are: (1) more risk averse individuals sort into public sector employment, (2) the impact of career specific and unemployment risk attitudes is larger than the impact of general risk attitudes, and (3) risk taking is rewarded with higher wages in the private but not in the public sector.

Keywords: wage differentials; public sector; risk aversion; sorting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J24 J31 J45 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 22 pages
Date: 2008-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab and nep-upt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (21)

Published - published in: German Economic Review, 2011, 12 (1), 85 - 99

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Journal Article: Risk Aversion and Sorting into Public Sector Employment (2011)
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