IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/manchs/v75y2007i4p422-444.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

On The Post‐Unification Development Of Public And Private Pay In Germany

Author

Listed:
  • AXEL HEITMUELLER
  • KOSTAS G. MAVROMARAS

Abstract

German post‐unification in the 1990s is a period marked by substantial economic and political change, a crucial part of which was a largely politically motivated attempt to build East German wages towards the much higher West German wages. We study the development of the public–private sector pay gap in Germany in the 1990s. We show that throughout the 1990s the overall pay gap between the public and private sectors remained stable in the West and increased considerably in the East. Wage decompositions show a small and stable negative public sector premium in the West, and a large and increasing positive public sector pay premium in the East. Decompositions also show a considerable deterioration in the skill base of the private sector in the East which the paper attributes in part to the improved attractiveness of the public sector. The paper argues that the development in the size and composition of the public–private sector pay gap in the East is an indication of the public sector crowding out the private sector and raises concerns about the future competitiveness of the East.

Suggested Citation

  • Axel Heitmueller & Kostas G. Mavromaras, 2007. "On The Post‐Unification Development Of Public And Private Pay In Germany," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 75(4), pages 422-444, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:manchs:v:75:y:2007:i:4:p:422-444
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9957.2007.01024.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9957.2007.01024.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1467-9957.2007.01024.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jennifer Hunt, 2001. "Post-Unification Wage Growth in East Germany," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 83(1), pages 190-195, February.
    2. Hartog, Joop & Oosterbeek, Hessel, 1993. "Public and private sector wages in the Netherlands," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 97-114, January.
    3. Wolfgang Franz & Viktor Steiner, 2000. "Wages in the East German Transition Process: Facts and Explanations," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 1(3), pages 241-269, August.
    4. Christian Dustmann & Arthur Van Soest, 1997. "Wage structures in the private and public sectors in West Germany," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 18(3), pages 225-247, August.
    5. Burda, M. & Schmidt, C., 1997. "Getting Behind The East-West Wage Differential: Theory and Evidence," SFB 373 Discussion Papers 1997,77, Humboldt University of Berlin, Interdisciplinary Research Project 373: Quantification and Simulation of Economic Processes.
    6. Andrew Henley & Dennis Thomas, 2001. "Public Service Employment and the Public- Private Wage Differential in British Regions," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(3), pages 229-240.
    7. Dustmann, Christian & van Soest, Arthur, 1998. "Public and private sector wages of male workers in Germany," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(8), pages 1417-1441, September.
    8. Hans‐Werner Sinn, 1995. "Staggering along: wages policy and investment support in East Germany," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 3(4), pages 403-426, December.
    9. Michael C. Burda & Christoph M. Schmitd, 1997. "Getting Behind the East-West [German] Wage Differential: Theory and Evidence," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series 105, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    10. Oaxaca, Ronald L. & Ransom, Michael R., 1994. "On discrimination and the decomposition of wage differentials," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 5-21, March.
    11. Heitmueller, Axel, 2005. "A Note on Decompositions in Fixed Effects Models in the Presence of Time-Invariant Characteristics," IZA Discussion Papers 1886, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gabriele Cardullo, 2017. "The Welfare and Employment Effects of Centralized Public Sector Wage Bargaining," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 19(2), pages 490-510, April.
    2. Tansel, Aysit & Keskin, Halil Ibrahim & Ozdemir, Zeynel Abidin, 2008. "Public versus Private Sector Wage Gap in Egypt: Evidence from Quantile Regression on Panel Data," MPRA Paper 89540, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Orlowski, Robert & Riphahn, Regina T., 2008. "Seniority in Germany: New evidence on returns to tenure for male full-time workers," Zeitschrift für ArbeitsmarktForschung - Journal for Labour Market Research, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 41(2/3), pages 139-155.
    4. Orlowski, Robert & Riphahn, Regina T., 2008. "Seniority in Germany: New evidence on returns to tenure for male full-time workers," Zeitschrift für ArbeitsmarktForschung - Journal for Labour Market Research, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 41(2/3), pages 139-155.
    5. Caponi, Vincenzo, 2017. "Public employment policies and regional unemployment differences," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 1-12.
    6. Gabriele Cardullo, 2012. "Public Sector Wage Bargaining, Unemployment, and Inequality," DEP - series of economic working papers 2/2012, University of Genoa, Research Doctorate in Public Economics.
    7. Kostas Mavromaras & Stephane Mahuteau & Kostas Mavromaras & Sue Richardson & Rong Zhu, 2017. "Public–Private Sector Wage Differentials in Australia," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 93, pages 105-121, June.
    8. Tansel, Aysit & Keskin, Halil Ibrahim & Ozdemir, Zeynel Abidin, 2008. "Public versus Private Sector Wage Gap in Egypt: Evidence from Quantile Regression on Panel Data," MPRA Paper 89540, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Gabriela Grotkowska, 2016. "Regional variation in the public sector wage premium in Poland," Ekonomia journal, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw, vol. 46.
    10. Orlowski, Robert & Riphahn, Regina T., 2008. "Seniority in Germany: New evidence on returns to tenure for male full-time workers," Zeitschrift für ArbeitsmarktForschung - Journal for Labour Market Research, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 41(2/3), pages 139-155.
    11. Tansel, Aysit & Keskin, Halil Ibrahim & Ozdemir, Zeynel Abidin, 2020. "Public-private sector wage gap by gender in Egypt: Evidence from quantile regression on panel data, 1998–2018," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jelena Lausev, 2014. "WHAT HAS 20 YEARS OF PUBLIC–PRIVATE PAY GAP LITERATURE TOLD US? EASTERN EUROPEAN TRANSITIONING vs. DEVELOPED ECONOMIES," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(3), pages 516-550, July.
    2. Kohn, Karsten & Antonczyk, Dirk, 2011. "The Aftermath of Reunification: Sectoral Transition, Gender, and Rising Wage Inequality in East Germany," IZA Discussion Papers 5708, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Jennifer Hunt, 2002. "The Transition in East Germany: When Is a Ten-Point Fall in the Gender Wage Gap Bad News?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 20(1), pages 148-169, January.
    4. Dickson, Matt & Postel-Vinay, Fabien & Turon, Hélène, 2014. "The lifetime earnings premium in the public sector: The view from Europe," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 141-161.
    5. Smolny Werner, 2009. "Wage Adjustment, Competitiveness and Unemployment – East Germany after Unification," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 229(2-3), pages 130-145, April.
    6. Santiago Budria, 2010. "Schooling and the distribution of wages in the European private and public sectors," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(8), pages 1045-1054.
    7. Karsten Kohn & Dirk Antonczyk, 2013. "The aftermath of reunification," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 21(1), pages 73-110, January.
    8. Ira N. Gang & Robert C. Stuart & Myeong-Su Yun, 2006. "Wage Growth and Inequality Change During Rapid Economic Transition," Departmental Working Papers 200631, Rutgers University, Department of Economics.
    9. Gabriela Grotkowska & Leszek Wincenciak & Tomasz Gajderowicz, 2017. "Evolution of the Public-Sector Wage Premium in Poland," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 1, pages 5-31.
    10. Raúl Ramos & Esteban Sanromá & Hipólito Simón, 2014. "Public-Private Sector Wage Differentials by Type of Contract: Evidence from Spain," Hacienda Pública Española, IEF, vol. 208(1), pages 107-141, March.
    11. Gabriela Grotkowska & Leszek Wincenciak & Tomasz Gajderowicz, 2018. "Public–private wage differential in a post‐transition economy," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 26(3), pages 495-522, July.
    12. Louis Christofides & Maria Michael, 2013. "Exploring the public-private sector wage gap in European countries," IZA Journal of European Labor Studies, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 2(1), pages 1-53, December.
    13. Evangelia Papapetrou, 2006. "The Public-Private Sector Pay Differential in Greece," Public Finance Review, , vol. 34(4), pages 450-473, July.
    14. Raúl Ramos & Esteban Sanromá & Hipólito Simón, 2014. "Public-Private Sector Wage Differentials by Type of Contract: Evidence from Spain," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 208(1), pages 107-141, March.
    15. Orlowski, Robert & Riphahn, Regina T., 2008. "Seniority in Germany: New evidence on returns to tenure for male full-time workers," Zeitschrift für ArbeitsmarktForschung - Journal for Labour Market Research, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 41(2/3), pages 139-155.
    16. Kamila Sławińska, 2021. "Public–private sector wage gap in a group of European countries: an empirical perspective," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 60(4), pages 1747-1775, April.
    17. Gabriela Grotkowska & Leszek Wincenciak, 2014. "Public sector wage premium in Poland: can it be explained by structural differences in employment?," Ekonomia journal, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw, vol. 38.
    18. Young-Bae Kim, 2008. "Is There A Trade-off Between Regional Growth and National Income? Theory and Evidence from the EU," School of Economics Discussion Papers 1008, School of Economics, University of Surrey.
    19. Denis Fougère & Julien Pouget, 2003. "Les déterminants économiques de l'entrée dans la fonction publique," Économie et Statistique, Programme National Persée, vol. 369(1), pages 15-48.
    20. repec:mse:cesdoc:09059r is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Christofides, Louis N. & Pashardes, Panos, 2002. "Self/paid-employment, public/private sector selection, and wage differentials," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(6), pages 737-762, December.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J78 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Public Policy (including comparable worth)
    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:manchs:v:75:y:2007:i:4:p:422-444. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/semanuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.