Wage Policy in the Federal Bureaucracy

Wage Policy in the Federal Bureaucracy by George J. Borjas examines how the salaries of the 2.4 million full-time, permanent civilian employees of the federal government are determined. The author finds significant differences in the salaries paid to similarly skilled employees of different federal agencies, and he hypothesizes that the political value of the output of these agencies varies. The executive and legislative branches of the government, he implies, attempt to "purchase" the cooperation of bureaucrats whenever it is politically valuable to do so. Agencies that have small and well-organized constituencies, and that consist of similar, rather than heterogeneous, groups of bureaucrats, receive significantly higher wage rates.