In this article, we investigate motivations for civil service reforms of the past few
decades and the values associated with them. We focus on three popular reforms: (a)
pay for performance, (b) the decentralization of personnel authority, and (c) the elimination
or reduction of merit system protections for public employees. We review available
evidence on the impacts of these reforms and note their normative underpinnings.
We suggest that reforms often involve classic trade-offs such as that between equity
and efficiency. Finally, we conclude by encouraging governments to collect and make
available additional data that will be useful in assessing the operation and impact of
changes to personnel policy and will help to inform future decisions regarding proposed
reforms.