In Appendix A, we show the cross-county public sector employment data as a
percentage of population from 1985 to 2005 for Organization for Economic Co-operation
and Development (OECD hereafter) and non-OECD countries.2 From those data, we can
observe several trends. First, while public sector employment has grown in some
countries, it has shrunk in the others for the period 1985-2005. We can call this the time
series variation of public employment. Second, the size of public sector employment in
some countries is larger than that in other countries in any year. We can call this the
cross-sectional variation of public employment. This dissertation seeks to explain these
variations over time and across countries in public sector employment. Besides gaining
an understanding of the sources of public employment variation over time and across
countries, we are also interested in examining the process of public employment
decentralization in some countries around the world and the degree of public employment
decentralization in some countries growing faster than the others. We can call this the
structural dimension variation in public employment. Appendix B shows the public
employment as a percentage of population at the central and subnational government