An estimated one out of five employees in this country works for some
branch of government. Because policies concerning the compensation of
these employees rest on assumptions about the economic dynamics of the
public sector, the issue of public sector employment is of vital
importance in the analysis of the national economy. In Public Sector
Payrolls, leading economists explore the independent and interdependent
functioning of the public and private sectors and their effect on the
economy as a whole.
The volume, developed from a 1984 National Bureau of Economic Research
conference, focuses on various labor issues in military and other
governmental employment. Several contributors discuss compensation in
the armed forces and its relationship to that in the private sector, as
well as the interaction between the military and the private sector in
the employment of youth. This latter is of particular interest because
studies of youth employment have generally ignored the important
influence of military hiring practices on labor market conditions. In
other contributions, the response of wages and employment in the public
sector to economic conditions is analyzed, and a detailed study of
government pension plans is presented. Also included is a theoretical
and empirical analysis of comparable worth in the public sector from the
viewpoint of analytical labor economics. The volume concludes with a
look at public school teachers' salaries in the context of current
debates over improving the quality of American education.
A valuable resource to policymakers, Public Sector Payrolls will be an
important addition to research in the field of labor economics.
