Pay structures may not reflect differences in individual productivity and effort; in particular, public pay regulation can distort labour markets. We analyse the impact of nationally regulated pay on the quality of applicants to be police officers across England and Wales, exploiting a unique dataset of individual test scores from the national assessment required of all police applicants, and combining this with data on local labour markets and policing conditions. National wage setting impacts on the quality of police applicants through two channels: first, through spatial variations in the relative wage of policing compared to other occupations, and second, because national wages cannot compensate for local variations in the disamenity of policing. We also provide preliminary evidence on whether police recruit quality is associated with police force performance.
Authors
Research Associate University of Sussex
Richard is an IFS Research Associate, a Part-time Professor of Economics at the University of Sussex and a Visiting Professor of Economics at UCL.
Rowena Crawford
Journal article details
- DOI
- 10.1111/ecca.12270
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Issue
- Volume 85, Issue 340, April 2018
Suggested citation
Crawford, R and Disney, R. (2018). 'Wage regulation and the quality of police applicants' 85(340/2018)
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