Public Sector Pay in the UK: Quantifying the Impact of the Review Bodies

This paper examines the impact of the UK Public Sector Pay Review Bodies (PRBs) on the pay of their remit groups comparing the real weekly earnings of workers using ASHE and LFS data from 1993 to 2007 for 10 occupational subgroups. Using consecutive difference-in-differences we can identify whether the PRBs have had an impact by comparing the differences in pay for different occupations in successive time periods. Our examination of the annual changes in differentials suggest that the PRBs may have had relatively little systematic impact on earnings over and above that observed for comparable individuals working elsewhere in the public sector.