Intrinsic Motivations of Public Sector Employees: Evidence for Germany
34 Pages Posted: 18 Jun 2013
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Intrinsic Motivations of Public Sector Employees: Evidence for Germany
Intrinsic Motivations of Public Sector Employees: Evidence for Germany
Date Written: June 17, 2013
Abstract
We examine differences in altruism and laziness between public sector employees and private sector employees. Our theoretical model predicts that the likelihood of public sector employment increases with a worker’s altruism, and increases or decreases with a worker’s laziness depending on his altruism. Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study, we find that public sector employees are significantly more altruistic and lazy than observationally equivalent private sector employees. A series of robustness checks show that these patterns are stronger among higher educated workers; that the sorting of altruistic people to the public sector takes place only within the caring industries; and that the difference in altruism is already present at the start of people’s career, while the difference in laziness is only present for employees with sufficiently long work experience.
Keywords: public service motivation, altruism, laziness, sorting, public sector employment, personality characteristics
JEL Classification: H100, J450, M500
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
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