> And there are counterexamples, very big ones at that. Countries where civil service is poorly paid
What are the successful countries where civil servants are not compensated fairly?
What are the successful countries where civil servants are not compensated fairly?
Much of Europe for the second place?
As for Asia, Taiwanese are quite low despite high bar, South Korean, and Japanese were more or less equal to average white collar job. Malaysia can be though of as a mid income country, and their local government salaries lag behind white collar jobs.
China... is a special case
- the NIH is one of the biggest drivers of biomedical research in the world, both in terms of extramural funding and intramural research. The NSF, NASA, and the research arms of the DoD and DoE (etc) are also world-class.
- Hurricane Dorian nonsense aside, the weather and ocean forecasts from NOAA/NWS are well-regarded.
- the FAA and FDA have kept flying, food, and medicine quite safe.
- The National Parks System is fantastic and the USGS maps are quite good; maybe only the UK’s OS maps are better regarded.
Which US institutions are profiting?
So while the 3 letter agencies don’t profit directly, sometimes the people do.
The FDA might be too slow to approve approve new sunscreens, but they also dragged their feet on approving thalidomide, a decision that turned out to be absolutely correct in hindsight.
The FDA's overall reputation seems pretty good. Daniel Carpenter's book calls it "the most powerful regulatory agency in the world." This article talks about its (very positive) reputation as well: https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/full/10.1377/hlthaff.23.1....