The Center for State and Local Government Excellence has published a new study comparing compensation for state and local government employees to that of private sector workers. The study was published by a group of researchers from Boston College and confirms several important points that Jason Richwine and I have made in our own work on public sector pay. However, it also disagrees with our work in a number of details, which combine to produce very different conclusions. As this is an important issue and the authors of the CSLGE paper are well-respected, I put together a long and detailed analysis of how our two papers differ. Those who like to get into the weeds will discover how difficult these issues are to analyze and how even small differences in assumptions can lead to very different conclusions regarding whether public employees are over or underpaid.
See my response here: Biggs Response to CSLGE Public Pay Paper
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