Using the postal service as an example, this article highlights the critical role played by a series of “implicit” judgments when estimating the government earnings differential. Regression estimates demonstrate that alternative treatments of location, gender, industry, occupation and union...

Many studies have examined the influence of union density (union members as a percentage of all workers) on earnings in the private sector, but few such studies have looked at the public sector. Using data from the 1991 Current Population Survey, this study estimates the determinants of earnings...

Economists use average wage differentials to examine whether public- and private-sector workers have comparable earnings. Such average differentials, originally developed for other purposes, fail to measure the true distance from comparability. In short, if average earnings in the public and...