Carl Singleton has recently had a short journal article published in Economics Letters (Forthcoming, January 2019). The title of the paper is “The public-private sector wage differential in the UK: Evidence from longitudinal employer-employee data”. A link to the paper is here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176518304610

Abstract:

If fiscal policy exerts pressure on public services, then attention often falls on the public-private sector wage differential. Estimated with longitudinal employer-employee data for the years 2002-2016 in the United Kingdom, among men there was no significant public sector wage premium. However, women received an average 4% premium compared with working in private sector firms.

Highlights:

•Gender-specific AKM-type wage equations are estimated for the UK.

•The measured public sector wage premium is biased if firm effects are not estimated.

•The estimated public sector premium was generally small for both men and women.