Direct wage comparisons show that public-sector employees earn around 15% more than private-sector employees. But should these differences be interpreted as a "public-sector premium"? Two points need to be considered. First, the public and private sectors differ in the jobs they offer and the...

We uncover the short- and long-run structural determinants of the existing cross-country heterogeneity in public-private pay differentials for a broad set of OECD countries. We explore micro data (EU-SILC, 2004–2012) and macro data (1970–2014). Three results stand out. First, when looking at...

We estimate the public-private sector pay gap for 27 European countries, using the 2008 EU SILC. The coefficients of conditional (on personal and job characteristics) public sector controls give a first impression on wage differences, while decompositions into explained and unexplained...

Employees show more commitment to an employer that promotes the greater good, and they work harder too. Moreover, many people are willing to give up some of their compensation to contribute to a social cause. Being able to attract a motivated workforce would be particularly important for the...

This study investigates the public-private sector wage gap in Latvia using microdata from the labour force survey. The severity of public sector wage cuts employed as a response to the economic crisis and subsequent recovery provides a test bed to analyse whether and how the public-private...

The present study assessed the prevalence of satisfaction with work-related achievements in a random sample 860 Brunei public and private sector employees representing both genders. Job satisfaction is important since it acts as a source of intrinsic motivation encouraging workers to be...

The public sector hires disproportionately more educated workers. To rationalize this finding, we propose a model with a perfectly competitive private sector, and non-Walrasian public sector. Our economy also features heterogeneity across individuals and jobs, and a simple sorting mechanism that...

This paper updates the available evidence on the public-private wage gap in Spain, which dates back to 2012. Through microdata drawn from the last three waves of the Wage Structure Survey (2010, 2014 and 2018), we study how this gap and its distribution by gender and education have evolved...