Retribuzioni e gerarchie nella Pubblica amministrazione: il caso dei Ministeri negli anni novanta

This paper analyses relationship between wages and hierarchical levels in the Italian Ministries during the ’90s. As stressed by the personnel economics literature, such an aspect plays a central role in defining the internal labour market functioning and it is crucial for human resources policies within an organisation, such as workers coordination, learning and motivation. In particular, wage differentials among levels together with the role of different factors effecting them within the sector are studied in detail. The overall wage differentials were found to increase in relation to the growth of wages for managers. Nevertheless, the wage differentials of clerical workers belonging to different hierarchical positions continued to slightly decrease. Human capital variables (tenure and education) and hierarchical position both were shown to play a relevant role in explaining wages. On the contrary, the belonging to a specific ministry has not been important (except, to a certain extent, for ministries with a financial nature) to explain wage differentials confirming the pre-eminent role of central (national) bargaining to that at the local level of single ministry. Implications for human resources policies that derive are also discussed.