Public Sector Pay and Adjustment - Lessons from Five Countries (Hardcover, annotated edition)

This volume describes and analyzes the effects of structural adjustment and public sector pay, based on the experience of a number of countries: Singapore, Republic of Korea, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Argentina. This selection of cases provides a variety of experience as regards paths and stages of economic and social development, the application of adjustment policies and the role of the public service in these processes. For each country a number of important issues are investigated, including: the relationship between macroeconomic policies and private-public sector wage developments; public sector pay policies; reaction of public service employees to real wage trends, pay policies and pay administration practices; and the impact of State intervention in the labour market. The findings in this volume suggest that the need to use careful, strategic interventions, rather than entirely market-determined approaches to the labour market, may be one of the major lessons of East-Asian economic success.