| Description |
1 online resource (23 pages) : illustrations |
| Series |
[IMF working paper ; WP/98/56] |
|
IMF working paper ; WP/98/56.
|
| Summary |
This paper uses a simple model to analyze the forces that determine the size of the public sector and the quality of workers employed in that sector. Workers are heterogeneous, and the public sector chooses an employment strategy that maximizes a social welfare function U(s, Y) that depends on the share of the labor force employed in public service s and private sector output Y. The government is fully informed about worker productivity. By examining the welfare properties of the possible outcomes, we are able to illuminate situations in which policies that seek to constrain the public sector may or may not improve economic efficiency. Economic models often regard the role of government to be one of defining tax and spending policies in a context in which exhaustive government spending makes no direct contribution to the production process. The standard prescription that emerges from this approach is one of finding appropriately non-distortionary tax policies and setting overall tax and spending levels to achieve aggregate demand objectives. From the public finance perspective, however, the public sector is typically assumed to produce public goods which enhance welfare. This occurs not only through government provision of goods such as parks and museums, for example, but also through the provision of public goods that enhance the productivity of factors in the private sector (such as when an improved legal and regulatory framework reduces transactions costs and promotes increased market efficiency. 2 |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (page 23) |
| Notes |
Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212 MiAaHDL |
|
digitized 2010 HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve pda MiAaHDL |
|
Print version record |
| Subject |
Public administration -- Developing countries
|
|
Civil service -- Developing countries
|
|
Civil service -- Developing countries -- Salaries, etc
|
|
Government productivity -- Developing countries
|
|
Labor market -- Developing countries
|
|
Civil service
|
|
Civil service -- Salaries, etc.
|
|
Government productivity
|
|
Labor market
|
|
Public administration
|
|
Developing countries
|
| Form |
Electronic book
|
| Author |
Montiel, Peter J., 1951- author.
|
|
Sheppard, Stephen, author.
|
|
International Monetary Fund, issuing body.
|
|
International Monetary Fund. Monetary and Exchange Affairs Department.
|
| ISBN |
1283553651 |
|
9781283553650 |
|
