Browsing by Autor "Don Bellante"

Filter results by typing the first few letters
Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item type: Item ,
    The Relative Pay Of Public Employees In The U.S.: An Assessment Of Empirical Research
    (Clute Institute, 2011) Josefa Ramoni; Don Bellante
    Beginning in the 1970s and continuing to the present, economists have examined the pay of public sector employees. Usually, an attempt is made to compare the compensation of public employees at various levels of government to workers in the private sector who are believed to be comparable. Of the many studies done, there is substantial variation in the operational meaning of comparable. Nonetheless, the general finding is that public employees on average receive rents or, stated otherwise, are overcompensated when compared to employees in private employment. The estimated levels of rent seem to be highest at the federal and lowest at the local level of government. Despite the general finding, there are substantial differences in the quantitative estimates. The major focus of this paper is on a critical evaluation of the various empirical methodologies that have been employed. An attempt will be made to reconcile the differences observed and to suggest improvements in the method of estimation.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item type: Item ,
    Wage Differentials Between The Public And The Private Sector: How Comparable Are The Workers?
    (Clute Institute, 2011) Josefá Ramoni Perazzi; Don Bellante
    <p class="Normal1" style="text-align: justify; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0in; margin: 0in 34.2pt 0pt 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; color: black; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">This paper’s purpose is to examine the importance of controlling for the comparability of the units in a sample when examining wage differentials of various types. We use U.S. CPS data for the period 1992-2000 to compare estimated wage differentials between public and private sector workers obtained using two different methodologies: Lee’s two-step method that controls for the selection bias resulting from the non-randomness of the sample, and the propensity score matching method that controls also for the comparability of the workers. Lee’s method suggests that federal workers are paid a premium, while state and local workers are underpaid compared to private sector workers. However the matching method indicates that this data is too heterogeneous to be used to compare wages across sectors. We conclude that, when the outcome under study is not only affected by some sort of selection but also requires comparable groups, the traditional methodology may not be enough. </span></p>