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General Government and Public Enterprises together make up the largest aggregate called _Public Service._ The relationship between the 'boxes' we have created is shown in Table A-1.

General government includes employment in 'all government departments offices, organizations and other bodies which are agencies or instruments of the central or local authorities whether accounted for or financed in, ordinary or extraordinary budgets or extra-budgetary funds. They are not solely engaged in administration but also in defense and public order, in the promotion of economic growth and in the provision of education, health, cultural and social services."' Within General Government we have distinguished five different units which are mutually exclusive categories.

_Government administration_ includes executive and legislative administration by departments directly dependent on the Head of State or the Parliament, together with all other ministries and administrative departments. Consequently, government administration in our definition is general government less teaching and health personnel.

# Government administration is in turn divided into two categories:

_Central Govemment,_ which includes all employees paid by the central government budget; _Non-central oovemment,_ which encompasses all govemment administration employees who _are not_ specifically funded by the central government. It includes municipalities, as also regional, provincial or state (in a federal system) employment.

The distinction here is not solely a geographical one, but more importantly a budgetary one. Non-central Government employees are those people who appear in the books of a non-central govemment organization, and not all those employees who are posted locally. Therefore, the definition makes a clear distinction between decentralization and deconcentration. Deconcentration, i.e., the geographical dispersal of central government entities without changing their lines of ultimate authority and sources of finance is understood here as a different method of exercising central govemment functions and not as a basic change in the power relationships between central and local governments. While deconcentration is an important development our underlying assumption is the traditional one: "he who pays the piper calls the tune'.

_Health employmen._ covers employees of government hospitals and other govemment health institutions at all levels of government. It includes medical and paramedical staff (doctors, and nurses), laboratory technicians and workers in technical facilities. Wherever possible, administrative employees working in the health sector have been placed in Govemment administration and not in health employment.

_Education employment_ covers primary, secondary and university education employment. Where we were able to identify them, administrative employees either working in the Ministry of Education or in the school system were placed in Govemment administration.

Defense: includes all enlisted personnel (including conscripts) and professional military. Where we were able to identify them, administrative employees of the Ministry of Defense were considered to be part of Govemment administration. Since defense is not within the scope of this study, we will focus essentially on _Civilian Govemment_ Reference is occasionally made to _Consolidated Central Govemment -_ this definition, consistent with data originating from the IMF, corresponds to Govemment administration, education and health employment.

In the public sector, but outside of General Government, are _Public_ **_Enterprises,_** majority-owned, directly or indirectly, by the state. Employment in public enterprises is also not discussed in this study as it raises very different issues from government employment.

# Government Wages

Certain concepts require further explanation: Average Government wages: Represents the ratio between Central government's wage bill and the number of central govemment employees. It is important to note, in this instance, that the difference in functions that each individual country imparts onto its government complicates the calculation of this data. Issues of how to classify government employees, are relevan **t** o this discussion. Where a specific source is listed for this item, the authors have used already available figures, thereby considerably reducing any doubt as to their accuracy. Where the source is not listed, the figure is the result of authors' estimates, and therefore requires an extra amount of caution.

1 International Standard of Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities (ISIC), Series M No.4, Rev 3- 1990.