Optimal Public Sector Premium, Talent Misallocation, and Aggregate Productivity: Evidence from the Middle East and North Africa

This paper develops a tractable general equilibrium model to quantify the aggregate productivity gains from adjusting the public sector premium and the size of the public sector to their optimal levels. In the framework, the optimal size of the public sector is contingent on the efficiency level of public goods in increasing the productivity of the private sector. The model also incorporates an endogenous decision between market and non-market activities for women. The model is calibrated using data from the Arab Republic of Egypt, a country that exhibits a disproportionate share of workers, and women especially, in the public sector. The findings show that, under a conservative value for the efficiency of the public sector, aligning the public sector premium with its optimal level, thus lowering the share of employment in the public sector, results in aggregate efficiency gains of 12 percent for output per worker and 8 percent for total factor productivity. For lower values of the elasticity of private output to public goods, the productivity gains are almost twice as large. The optimal premium is positive for women and approaches zero for men, preventing a shift of mid-high-level skilled women from the public sector to non-market activities and also a contraction of the male entrepreneurial sector. Notably, a reduced female public sector premium fosters greater female labor force participation in market activities through an expansion of the female entrepreneurial sector, which increases the demand for production labor and drives wages up.