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Where Does the Good Shepherd Go? Civic Virtue and Sorting into Public Sector Employment

Author

Listed:
  • Adam Ayaita

    (University of Tuebingen, LEAD Graduate School & Research Network)

  • Filiz Guelal

    (Paderborn University)

  • Philip Yang

    (University of Tuebingen, LEAD Graduate School & Research Network)

Abstract

Several studies have analyzed motives to work in the public versus private sector. However, research on prosocial motivation in the context of public sector employment has largely neglected civic virtue, the motive to contribute to society. This study considers civic virtue in addition to other possible motives, using a representative, longitudinal data set of employees in Germany including 63,203 observations of 13,685 different individuals. We find that civic virtue relates positively to public sector employment beyond altruism, risk aversion, and laziness. The result holds within different branches and is explained by selection at the start of the career.

Suggested Citation

  • Adam Ayaita & Filiz Guelal & Philip Yang, 2017. "Where Does the Good Shepherd Go? Civic Virtue and Sorting into Public Sector Employment," Economics of Education Working Paper Series 0134, University of Zurich, Department of Business Administration (IBW), revised Jan 2018.
    • Handle: RePEc:iso:educat:0134
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    Cited by:

    1. Dur, Robert & van Lent, Max, 2018. "Serving the public interest in several ways: Theory and empirics," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 13-24.
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    3. Andree Ehlert & Eva García‐Morán, 2022. "Workers' self‐selection into public sector employment: A tale of absenteeism," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 75(3), pages 394-409, August.
    4. Max Deter, 2020. "Prosociality and Risk Preferences in the Financial Sector," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 1075, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Civic virtue; engagement; prosocial motivation; public sector employment; selection; socialization;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H1 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • J45 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Public Sector Labor Markets
    • M5 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics

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