Systems of public sector remuneration in six OECD countries (Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, United States): Comparative and analytical study (1998), by Y. Ghellab and N. Laniel
In this study, the authors place greater emphasis on the functioning of the remuneration systems and compare the managment rules of these systems in six countries. They examine the way in which wages are fixed, together with the degree of centralization/decentralization of the methods in force in each country. They also deal with the attempts made in the six countries to link wages to productivity by means of certain aspects, such as output bonuses.

By examining the experiences of six of the most important OECD countries, this study shows that the extreme views that certain people have of the management of public sector remuneration systems, in particular the bringing into question of traditional factors in the development of public servants' wages, such as seniority and its replacement by exaggerated forms of the connection between wages and productivity, are mistaken. What tends to emerge from this study is rather that more pragmatic approaches are implemented in order to adapt the public sector remuneration systems to the new economic and social demands that form part of the different national realities. This study also demonstrates that the need for public sector reforms is of course vast, but that the necessary room for manoeuvre is often limited. In order to increase this room, it appears to be necessary to involve employees and their representatives to a greater extent in reform efforts .