Occasional Paper No

A significant body of literature suggests that enterprises in the public education sector may differ from ‘standard production’ market firms in important ways. Substantial government involvement is then legitimized. However, this literature often uses within-sector comparisons of school types, rather than cross-sector comparisons of the education sector with other sectors. This paper compares the structure of education enterprises and workplace practices with those in other industries, namely (the rest of) the public sector and the private sector. Key differences – particularly as regards staffing resources – between education providers and these other enterprises are identified from prior literature and then tested. Data from the UK Workplace Employee Relations Survey (1998) are used. Our findings show substantial differences in labor rewards and factor management in the education sector. The WERS98 has been provided by the Data Archive at Essex University. © 2001 Clive Belfield, Celia A. Brown and Hywel R. Thomas. Forthcoming in Education Economics. * Clive Belfield is the Assistant Director for Research at the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. Celia Brown is a Research Associate in the School of Education at the University of Birmingham, Birmingham, England. Hywel Thomas is Professor of the Economics of Education and Head of the School of Education, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, England. Contact author: [email protected].