Managerial Talent, Motivation, and Self-Selection into Public Management

No 4766, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: 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.

Keywords: managerial ability; public service motivation; public management; self-selection (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H83 J24 J3 J45 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 27 pages
Date: 2010-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe and nep-pbe
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (73)

Published - published in: Journal of Public Economics, 2010, 94 (9-10), 654-660

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Related works:
Journal Article: Managerial talent, motivation, and self-selection into public management (2010)
Working Paper: Managerial Talent, Motivation, and Self-Selection into Public Management (2008)
Working Paper: Managerial Talent, Motivation, and Self-Selection into Public Management (2008)
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