Managerial talent, motivation, and self-selection into public management

Arbeitspapier

The quality of public management is a recurrent concern in many countries. Calls to attract the economy's best and brightest managers to the public sector abound. This paper studies self-selection into managerial positions in the public and private sector, using a model of a perfectly competitive economy where people differ in managerial ability and in public service motivation. We find that, if demand for public sector output is not too high, the equilibrium return to managerial ability is always higher in the private sector. As a result, relatively many of the more able managers self-select into the private sector. Since this outcome is efficient, our analysis implies that attracting a more able managerial workforce to the public sector by increasing remuneration to private-sector levels is not cost-efficient.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 4766

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Public Administration; Public Sector Accounting and Audits ; Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity ; Public Sector Labor Markets
• Subject: Public management ; public service motivation ; managerial ability ; self-selection ; Führungskräfte ; Qualifikation ; Leistungsmotivation ; Arbeitsmobilität ; Öffentlicher Sektor ; Vergleich ; Privatwirtschaft ; Vollkommener Wettbewerb ; Theorie

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Delfgaauw, Josse ; Dur, Robert
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)
• (where): Bonn
• (when): 2010

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/36297
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:44 AM CET