The Political Economy of Public Sector Employment

该项目涉及对政治经济学中三组问题的研究：国家和地方公共部门就业和工资的决定因素；公共部门议价制度的决定因素和演变；以及公共部门劳动力市场中与政治行为相关的社会福利成本的测量。其目标是利用公共部门劳动力市场，更广泛地了解州和地方政府的运作。确定了政治因素对美国各州公共部门就业和收入的影响程度。通过建立政治家、选民和公共部门工作人员的行为模型，并将这些模型应用于数据，解决了这个问题的几个方面。首先，目的是解释州和地方公共部门就业中存在的选举周期。政治家在选举前通过改变政府工作人员的就业和收入而获得的利益程度是确定的。在选举之前的一段时间里，投票似乎受到政府官僚机构水平变化的影响，其中一个目标是解释为什么会存在这种现象。公共部门的劳动力市场有自己的制度和法律来管理讨价还价。在过去的40年里，这些法律一直在一个州一个州地发展。制度的发展既有政治上的原因，也有经济上的原因，作者们正在研究国家和地方达成交易的制度的决定因素。了解制度的演变本身就很重要，可能有助于分析劳动法的影响。公共部门的就业情况，以及个人和政治家的行为，使用了美国各州收集的45年的面板数据（1950年至1995年）进行分析。这些数据与NBER公共部门集体谈判法数据集的数据相结合，该数据集提供了1955年至1985年每个州五种公共部门雇员（州、警察、消防、教师、其他）的谈判环境信息。这些数据还增加了人口普查局关于公共部门就业和收入的信息。作者目前有1965年至1993年的国家全职雇员、当地全职雇员、国家工人平均工资、当地工人平均工资的数据。这三个数据来源应该允许作者检验关于公共部门劳动力市场的假设，并阐明政府在政治环境中的运作。

This project involves research on three sets of questions in political economy: the determinants of state and local public sector employment and wages; the determinants and evolution of institutions governing public sector bargaining; and the measurement of the social welfare cost associated with political behavior in public sector labor markets. The goal is to use public sector labor markets to learn more about the functioning of state and local governments more broadly. The extent to which political considerations influence public sector employment and earnings in the U.S. states is determined. Several aspects of this question are addressed by building models of the behavior of politicians, voters and public sector workers, and taking these models to the data. To begin, the aim is to explain the presence of electoral cycles in state and local public sector employment. The extent to which politicians gain by changing the employment and earnings of government workers prior to an election is determined. Votes appear to be influenced by changes in the level of government bureaucracies in the period just prior to an election, and one goal is to explain why this phenomenon exists. Public sector labor markets have their own institutions and laws governing bargaining. These laws have been evolving, state by state, for the past 40 years. Institutions develop for both political and economic reasons, and the authors are studying the determinants of the institutions within which state and local bargains are struck. An understanding of the evolution of institutions is important in its own right, and may help in analyzing the impact of labor laws. Public sector employment, together with individuals' and politicians' behavior, is analyzed using a 45 year panel of data collected on U.S. states (1950 1995). These data are augmented with data from the NBER Public Sector Collective Bargaining Law Data Set, which provides information on the bargaining environment for five types of public sector employees (state, police, fire, teacher, other) for each state from 1955 1985. These data are also augmented with information on public sector employment and earnings from the Census Bureau. The authors currently have data on state full-time employees, local full-time employees, average state worker salaries, average local worker salaries, from 1965 1993. These three data sources should allow the authors to test hypotheses about public sector labor markets and to shed light on the functioning of governments in political settings.