6 therefore advised to treat all of these figures -and especially those in the last column, with a large dose of salt.

The main findings are:

- Globally, the central government wage bill absorbs about 5.4% of GDP. With wage rates for local government roughly estimated from information for a few countries at about three-fourths of central government wages, and based on the employment information shown in Table 1, total civilian government salaries can be estimated to absorb about 9% of GDP as a worldwide average;

- the heaviest fiscal weight of the central government wage bill is in the Middle East and North Africa (9.8% of GDP), followed by Africa at 6.7% of GDP. Asia, the OECD countries and Latin America are all between 4.5% and 5% of GDP, and the lowest percentage of GDP is accounted for by the central government wage bill in Eastern Europe and former USSR (although from the greater incidence of benefits in kind);

- when measured as a multiple of per capita GDP, central government wages appear higher in Africa than in any other region, apparently contrary to widespread evidence concerning deterioration of public wages in Africa. This finding, however, is largely due to the lower participation rate in African countries (see Table A-1) and the higher (although unquantifiable) degree of underestimation of informal production and thus of GDP per capita. Furthermore, the African average is influenced by comparatively high salaries in franc-zone countries, which are 7-11 times per capita GDP. It is, thus, entirely possible that government wages may still be higher than needed to attract and retain qualified government personnel in franc-zone countries. In most of the rest of Africa, instead, the widespread consensus about wage inadequacy is most probably right;

- conversely, the relatively low multiplier for OECD countries is related to the higher participation rate as well as the much higher GDP and smaller skill differentials between public employees and the rest of the working population. As noted earlier, the low figure for ECA is in part explained by the existence of a variety of benefits-in-kind which are not captured in the available data. But the reality of government wage inadequacy in the region (especially the former Soviet Union) is undeniable;

- the above findings are supported by data for 16 countries, from a variety of sources, concerning the relationship of public to private wages for comparable skill-mixes. Although the data are fragmentary and for a small sample, the picture conforms roughly with the findings from the other indicators. Generally, government employment carries a "discount" of 10-20% -which is not unreasonable considering the greater job security. The lowest relative public wages are found in ECA; in this case, the figure is less misleading than the

Another indicator of relative public wages exists as well: the ratio of public wages to average wages in manufacturing. This **indicator** permits much broader country coverage, because manufacturing wage data are collected and published by the ILO for a large number of countries on a regular basis. However, it gives a mnisleading comparison, as public wages are generally for white-collar skills, **while** wages **in** manufacturing are generally for lower-paid blue-collar jobs. The comparison (which we have carried out and is included in Table A-3 but is not shown in the text of **fthis** paper) is also misleading from a policy viewpoint-for it produces the false impression of a relatively well-off civil service.