State and Local Government Spending Growth and Private Sector GSP Growth: An Examination of the 50 States and the District of Columbia

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam A Millsap ◽  
Patrick Ishmael
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Private Sector ◽  
Government Spending ◽  
District Of Columbia ◽  
State And Local Government ◽  
Spending Growth ◽  
State And Local

scholarly journals Compensation for State and Local Government Workers

2012 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 217-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maury Gittleman ◽  
Brooks Pierce
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Local Government ◽  
Private Sector ◽  
Primary Data ◽  
Labor Statistics ◽  
State And Local Government ◽  
State And Local ◽  
Government Workers ◽  
Bureau Of Labor Statistics ◽  
Public Sector Workers

Are state and local government workers overcompensated? In this paper, we step back from the highly charged rhetoric and address this question with the two primary data sources for looking at compensation of state and local government workers: the Current Population Survey conducted by the Bureau of the Census for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the Employer Costs for Employee Compensation microdata collected as part of the National Compensation Survey of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In both data sets, the workers being hired in the public sector have higher skill levels than those in the private sector, so the challenge is to compare across sectors in a way that adjusts suitably for this difference. After controlling for skill differences and incorporating employer costs for benefits packages, we find that, on average, public sector workers in state government have compensation costs 3–10 percent greater than those for workers in the private sector, while in local government the gap is 10–19 percent. We caution that this finding is somewhat dependent on the chosen sample and specification, that averages can obscure broader differences in distributions, and that a host of worker and job attributes are not available to us in these data. Nonetheless, the data suggest that public sector workers, especially local government ones, on average, receive greater remuneration than observably similar private sector workers. Overturning this result would require, we think, strong arguments for particular model specifications, or different data.

Intertemporal Analysis of State and Local Government Spending: Theory and Tests

1994 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas Holtz-Eakin ◽  
Harvey S. Rosen ◽  
Schuyler Tilly
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Government Spending ◽  
State And Local Government ◽  
State And Local

Are US state and local governments consumption smoothers?

2014 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-100
Author(s):  
Maria Cornachione Kula
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Government Spending ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Consumption Smoothing ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Optimal Behavior ◽  
Institutional Differences ◽  
State And Local Government ◽  
Balanced Budget ◽  
State And Local

Purpose – This paper aims to reconcile conflicting findings in the literature regarding the extent of consumption smoothing of sub-federal governments. Design/methodology/approach – This paper uses a panel of US state and local government data from 1973 to 2000 to find the extent of consumption smoothing among US state and local governments. Findings – It is found that about 30 percent of spending is determined by permanent resources. Additionally, states with more stringent balanced budget rules are found to smooth more than states with the least stringent balanced budget rules, which do not smooth at all. There is some evidence that liquidity constraints may cause the non-optimal behavior of the states with the least restrictive requirements as they have higher average net debt per capita and face higher risk premia than those with the most stringent rules. Research limitations/implications – Results differ from research using aggregate US data, where it is found that essentially all changes in state and local government spending are due to changes in current resources. The conflict is attributed to panel vs aggregate data use. Other research finds greater smoothing in Norway, where about 65 percent of local government spending is determined by permanent resources, and Sweden, with at least 90 percent of spending changes due to changes in permanent resources. This conflict may be due to institutional differences. Further research is needed in this area. Originality/value – This paper fills a gap in the literature on consumption smoothing by considering a panel of US state and local governments.

Public Sector Earnings and the Extent of Unionization

ILR Review ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 610-628 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dale Belman ◽  
John S. Heywood ◽  
John Lund
Keyword(s):  
Public Sector ◽  
Local Government ◽  
Private Sector ◽  
Union Density ◽  
Positive Influence ◽  
The Public ◽  
State And Local Government ◽  
State And Local ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Government Workers

Many studies have examined the influence of union density (union members as a percentage of all workers) on earnings in the private sector, but few such studies have looked at the public sector. Using data from the 1991 Current Population Survey, this study estimates the determinants of earnings for state and local government employees in both the union and nonunion sectors. The extent of public sector unionization appears to be positively correlated with earnings for both state and local government workers and for those covered and not covered by collective agreements. Although the effect for non-covered employees is smaller than that for covered employees, both effects are larger than those typically found in similar estimates for the private sector. The authors also find that bargaining structure has some influence on earnings, with the most consistent effect being a positive influence of arbitration on the earnings of local government workers.

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