Are Public Sector Workers Paid More Than Their Alternative Wage? Evidence From Longitudinal Data and Job Queues

Alan Krueger

No 2500, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This paper performs a longitudinal comparison of public and private sector pay. Although not decisive because of small sample sizes, the results tend to corroborate the conclusions of previous cross-sectional studies. Specifically, I find that on average wages of federal workers exceed those of private sector workers by 10% to 25%, while wages of state and local government workers are roughly equivalent to or slightly less than the wages of private sector workers. Furthermore, these conclusions hold for a sample of workers who joined the government after being involuntarily displaced from their private sector jobs. In addition, a comparative analysis of the length of job queues suggests that on average more workers apply for job openings in the federal government than in the private sector. Finally, both longitudinal and cross-sectional analyses support the conclusion that the union wage gap is substantially smaller in the public sector than in the private sector.

Date: 1988-01
Note: LS
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (21)

Published as Freeman, Richard and Casey Ichniowski (eds.) When Public Sector Workers Unionize. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1988.
Published as Are Public Sector Workers Paid More Than Their Alternative Wage? Evidence from Longitudinal Data and Job Queues , Alan B. Krueger. in When Public Sector Workers Unionize , Freeman and Ichniowski. 1988

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w2500.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Chapter: Are Public Sector Workers Paid More Than Their Alternative Wage? Evidence from Longitudinal Data and Job Queues (1988)
Working Paper: Are Public Sector Workers Paid More Than Their Alternative Wage? Evidence from Longitudinal Data and Job Queues (1987)
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:nbr:nberwo:2500

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w2500

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().