IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/pubfin/v18y1990i2p221-235.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Effect of Establishment and Firm Size On Public Wage Differentials

Author

Listed:
  • Dale Belman

    (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee)

  • John S. Heywood

    (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee)

Abstract

Despite large separate literatures, the influence of establishment (plant) and firm size on wages has not been combined with estimation of public wage differentials. We find that doing so alters the estimated public differentials at each level of government. Federal workers in particular appear far less "overpaid " when estab lishment size premiums are included in the wage equations. Indeed, the usually reported federal differential is driven mainly by large wage gaps in the very smallest of establishments. Moreover, when both establishment and firm size premiums are included in the wage equations, little or no evidence emerges that even federal workers are "overpaid. " These results follow from the existence of size premiums among private and local workers but virtually no such premiums among federal or state workers.

Suggested Citation

  • Dale Belman & John S. Heywood, 1990. "The Effect of Establishment and Firm Size On Public Wage Differentials," Public Finance Review, , vol. 18(2), pages 221-235, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:pubfin:v:18:y:1990:i:2:p:221-235
    DOI: 10.1177/109114219001800205
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/109114219001800205
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/109114219001800205?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David S. Evans & Linda S. Leighton, 1989. "Why Do Smaller Firms Pay Less?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 24(2), pages 299-318.
    2. Richard B. Freeman & Casey Ichniowski, 1988. "When Public Sector Workers Unionize," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number free88-1, January.
    3. Charles C. Brown & James L. Medoff, 1988. "Employer Size, Pay, and the Ability to Pay in the Public Sector," NBER Chapters, in: When Public Sector Workers Unionize, pages 195-216, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Smith, Sharon P., 1977. "Government wage differentials," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 4(3), pages 248-271, July.
    5. William T. Dickens & Lawrence F. Katz, 1986. "Interindustry Wage Differences and Industry Characteristics," NBER Working Papers 2014, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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. Morikawa, Masayuki, 2016. "A comparison of the wage structure between the public and private sectors in Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 73-90.
    2. John S. Heywood & Nikolaos Theodoropoulos, 2016. "Employer Size Effects for Workers vs. Supervisors: British Survey Data," University of Cyprus Working Papers in Economics 07-2016, University of Cyprus Department of Economics.
    3. Jeff Borland & Joe Hirschberg & Jenny Lye, 1998. "Earnings of Public Sector and Private Sector Employees in Australia: Is There a Difference?," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 74(224), pages 36-53, March.
    4. Dale Belman & John S. Heywood, 2004. "Public wage differentials and the treatment of occupational differences," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(1), pages 135-152.
    5. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pc:p:3573-3630 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. John Gibson, 2009. "The public sector pay premium, compensating differentials and unions: propensity score matching evidence from Australia, Canada, Great Britain and the United States," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 29(3), pages 2325-2332.
    7. Gregory, Robert G. & Borland, Jeff, 1999. "Recent developments in public sector labor markets," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 53, pages 3573-3630, Elsevier.
    8. Justin Falk, 2012. "Comparing Wages in the Federal Government and the Private Sector: Working Paper 2012-03," Working Papers 42922, Congressional Budget Office.
    9. Colin Green & John S. Heywood & Nikolaos Theodoropoulos, 2017. "Employer size and supervisor earnings: Evidence from Britain," University of Cyprus Working Papers in Economics 04-2017, University of Cyprus Department of Economics.
    10. Domenico Depalo & Raffaela Giordano & Evangelia Papapetrou, 2015. "Public–private wage differentials in euro-area countries: evidence from quantile decomposition analysis," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 49(3), pages 985-1015, November.
    11. Melanie Jones & Ezgi Kaya, 2023. "The UK gender pay gap: Does firm size matter?," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 90(359), pages 937-952, July.
    12. Jesús CLEMENTE & Millán DIAZ-FONCEA & Carmen MARCUELLO & Marcos SANSO-NAVARRO, 2012. "The Wage Gap Between Cooperative And Capitalist Firms: Evidence From Spain," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 83(3), pages 337-356, September.
    13. Philip Murphy & David Blackaby & Nigel O'Leary & Anita Staneva, 2020. "Understanding What Has Been Happening to the Public‐Sector Pay Premium in Great Britain: A Distributional Approach Based on the Labour Force Survey," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 58(2), pages 273-300, June.
    14. Colin P. Green & John S. Heywood & Nikolaos Theodoropoulos, 2021. "Hierarchy and the Employer Size Effect on Wages: Evidence from Britain," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 88(351), pages 671-696, July.
    15. Dale Belman & John S. Heywood, 2004. "Public-Sector Wage Comparability: The Role of Earnings Dispersion," Public Finance Review, , vol. 32(6), pages 567-587, November.

    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. 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.
    2. repec:eee:labchp:v:3:y:1999:i:pc:p:3573-3630 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. H. Naci Mocan & Deborah Viola, 1997. "The Determinants of Child Care Workers' Wages and Compensation: Sectoral Differences, Human Capital, Race, Insiders and Outsiders," NBER Working Papers 6328, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Moundir, Lassassi & Menna, Khaled, 2016. "La Notion De « Femmes Au Foyer » En Algerie, Une Realite Ou Une Representation Nostalgique [The Notion Of “ Homemaker” In Algeria, A Reality Or A Nostalgic Representation]," MPRA Paper 85740, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Madhu Mohanty, 1998. "The role of the desire for union status in the decision to enter local government job queues: the US evidence," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(10), pages 1369-1378.
    6. Brunner, Eric J. & Squires, Tim, 2013. "The bargaining power of teachers’ unions and the allocation of school resources," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 15-27.
    7. Menna, Khaled & Lassassi, Moundir, 2016. "المرأة الماكثة في البيت في الجزائر: قدرات منسية؟! [The Housewives In Algeria: Forgotten Capacities?]," MPRA Paper 85421, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Keith A. Bender, 1998. "The Central Government‐Private Sector Wage Differential," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 12(2), pages 177-220, April.
    9. Gregory, Robert G. & Borland, Jeff, 1999. "Recent developments in public sector labor markets," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 53, pages 3573-3630, Elsevier.
    10. Babcock, Linda & Engberg, John & Greenbaum, Robert, 2005. "Wage spillovers in public sector contract negotiations: the importance of social comparisons," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 395-416, July.
    11. Caroline Hoxby & M. Daniele Paserman, 1998. "Overidentification Tests with Grouped Data," NBER Technical Working Papers 0223, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Kevin M. O'Brien, 1997. "Do Municipal Residency Laws Affect Labour Market Outcomes?," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 34(11), pages 1759-1769, November.
    13. Maury Gittleman & Brooks Pierce, 2012. "Compensation for State and Local Government Workers," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 26(1), pages 217-242, Winter.
    14. Kelly D. Edmiston, 2007. "The role of small and large businesses in economic development," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, vol. 92(Q II), pages 73-97.
    15. Lawrence F. Katz & Alan B. Krueger, 1991. "Changes in the Structure of Wages in the Public and Private Sectors," Working Papers 662, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    16. Dhammika Dharmapala & Richard H. McAdams & John Rappaport, 2019. "Collective Bargaining and Police Misconduct: Evidence from Florida," CESifo Working Paper Series 7718, CESifo.
    17. Terry M. Moe, 2009. "Collective Bargaining and The Performance of the Public Schools," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 53(1), pages 156-174, January.
    18. Maarten Goos & Jozef Konings, 2001. "Does Rent-Sharing Exist in Belgium ?. An Empirical Analysis Using Firm Level Data," Reflets et perspectives de la vie économique, De Boeck Université, vol. 0(1), pages 65-79.
    19. Robert Gibbons & Lawrence Katz, 1992. "Does Unmeasured Ability Explain Inter-Industry Wage Differentials?," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 59(3), pages 515-535.
    20. Veronique Genre & Karsten Kohn & Daphne Momferatou, 2011. "Understanding inter-industry wage structures in the euro area," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(11), pages 1299-1313.
    21. Alexander Muravyev, 2007. "Firm Size, Wages and Unobserved Skills: Evidence from Dual Job Holdings in the UK," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 681, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.

    More about this item

    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:sae:pubfin:v:18:y:1990:i:2:p:221-235. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.