Contenu du sommaire : La formation des salaires : de la "loi du marché" aux stratégies des acteurs

Wage Schemes and Labour Relations, by Bénédicte Reynaud. In order to get work of a certain degree of intensity and quality, monetary incentives or hierarchical organization within the firm are two concurrent means that can be used. On the basis of the 1986 survey on the structure of the wages of manual workers of the manufacturing and services sectors, it was shown that this theoretical substituability proves to be true only if wages are calculated with reference to results. Some non-incentive wage systems (without bonuses) are connected with weak hierarchical organizations. Using the concept of work checking as advocated by the radical American school, (R. Edwards), five different capital-labour configurations can be set up: simple checking for both skilled and unskilled labour, Taylorist and Fordist checking and bureaucratic checking. Firms' size, the organization of the work process, and the sectors involved are the main factors explaining why a firm belongs to one or another of these groups.

The Implicit Contracts Theory: Results and Prospects, by Anne Perrot. By using a simple model, this paper presents the idea behind the implicit contracts theory to explain why wage agreements are so rigid and why involuntary unemployment exists: the hiring process is considered to be an insurance policy whereby firms, either neutral or relatively unexposed to risk, insure wage earners, who are more exposed to risk, against fluctuations in their income. The result is rigidity in wages and perhaps involuntary unemployment. These results are discussed in comparison with other hypotheses on the nature of agreements and constraints on the agents (areas of employment, benefits paid to the unemployed,...). Such agreements can be responsible for cases of over-employment.

The Theory of Wage Negotiations: a Survey, by Pierre Cahuc. This paper points out the recent developments in the wages negotiation theory which explain how the levels of wages and employment are determined by taking into account strategic interactions between wage earners and firms. Despite the insufficiency of the microeconomics of negotiations, this theory renews many fields of macroeconomic analysis.

The Dualism of the Job Market: Issues and Theoretical Bases, by Hélène Zajdela. Ever since the time of Doeringer and Piore's work, the segmentation of the work market has frequently been described in terms of two different sectors existing at the same time: a primary sectorwith high wages, job stability and opportunities for promotion, and asecondary sector with low wages, high risk of unemployment and no opportunities for promotion. This paper attempts to explain how recent theories about the job market, especially theories involving efficiency wages and wage negotiations, brought about a conceptual renewal in this field by giving reasons for rationing employment in the primary sector, wage differential between the two sectors and the persistance of unemployment.

Wage Negotiation and the Segmentation of the Job Market, by Pierre Cahuc, Patrick Sevestre, Hélène Zajdela. This paper deals with a model for wage negotiation to explain why the job market is segmented. On the grounds of the non-cooperative games theory, a model is developed. It enables to distinguish different modes of wage setting depending on whether or not wage earners can hope for wages higher than market wages and on whether the firms' performance is good or bad. The model was tested on a sample of 334 French manufacturing firms over the 1974-1983 period. The estimates seem to confirm that both this model and the typology of firms involved therewith are relevant.

Externalities and Wage Agreements, by Hubert Kempf. Much work has recently been done on examining wage agreements from the purely macroeconomic standpoint. The purpose of this paper is to give a survey of this approach. It emphasizes its underlying problematics: wage agreements are the results of a lack of coordination bringing about externalities. In this respect, research on wage agreements is connected with today's revival of macroeconomics, which deals more and more with lack of coordination.

More on the Earnings Function under Test: Evidence from five countries, by Joachim Wagner. Identically specified human capital earnings functions are estimated and tested for male full-time workers from five countries (Australia, Canada, Germany, Israel, Netherlands). The hypotheses of normally distributed, homoscedastic errors and a correctly specified functional form are nearly always rejected.

The Efficiency Wage Theory and Non-Compensating Disparities: an Evaluation based on the Training-Professional Qualification Survey, by Jean-Michel Plassard, Gabriel Tahar. The purpose of this paper is to test the efficiency wage hypothesis on the Training-Professional Qualification Survey data. Once the factors likely to justify wage differences between individuals are considered (training, professional experience, previous periods of unemployment...), there are still some wage differences which are not accounted for: they could be attributed to differentiated wage policies: the "mechanism" of efficiency wages would not affect each sector in the same way and would therefore result in wage differences having no connection with what the actual work is like.

Job Distribution Among the Sexes: Human Capital or Discrimination? by Catherine Sofer. This article presents a theoretical and empirical analysis of the effect of occupational seggregation by sex on the male-female wage differential. Two main approaches are first examined: the human capital model supplemented by an "atrophy" hypothesis, and the discrimination theory. It is shown that the proportion of the male/female wage differential which can be attributed to discrimination varies, depending on the earnings function used, and particularly on the validity of the atrophy hypothesis, from 4% to 95%, or from 50% to more than 100% . The purpose of the final part of the paper is to test the atrophy hypothesis. The results indicate it has to be rejected.

Heterogeneity of wage profiles evaluated on the basis of panel data, by Stefan Lolliver, Jean-François Payen. This paper is an attempt at evaluating individual earnings profiles on the basis of a panel of wage earners from the private and semi-public sectors over the 1967 to 1982 period. One of its objectives is to quantify earnings functions on the basis of the human capital theory. To study individual earnings profiles, it is necessary to set up an econometric model which makes a distinction between macroeconom evolution and factors purely individual. The former depends on variables such as the current year of payment, the worker's age and his date of birth. Individual characteristics are modeled on the basis of a quadratic time function showing how the wage profile of a specific individual differs from that of other workers in his generation.

Wage Setting and the Effect of Contributions on the Cost of Labor, by Jean-Philippe Cotis, Abderrahim Loufir. French macroeconomic models attribute an asymmetrical impact on the cost of laborto both wage earners' and employers' contributions: according to these models, the increase in wage earners'contributions entails a decrease in net wages unlikely to alter the overall cost of labor, whereas the increase in employers' contributions is entirely translated into an increase in the cost of labor. The purpose of this study is to test empirically the accuracy of this statement for France and for five other European countries by using a "wage equation" integrating both wage earners' and employers' contributions. The result is that neither employers' contributions nor wage earners' contributions have any middle-term influence on the cost of labor. They do however have an adverse effect on the purchasing power of net wages. Changing employers' contributions only has a passing effect particularly on the cost of labor.

Employment Policy: Quantitative Estimation of the Impact of Various Policy Schemes on the Job Market, by Raphaël Tresmontant, Ivan Ermakoff. Community Programs ("TUC"), qualifications agreements, return-to-work agreements, local programs ("PIL"), training sessions, retirement at an early age, etc.; there are many employment policy schemes which are frequently modified. By acting on the actual volume of employment and on labor resources, they aim at reducing certain disequilibriums on the job market: even though the total number of beneficiaries increased considerably between 1985 and 1988, the net effects in terms of jobs created and unemployment avoided varied greatly from one scheme to another. Incentives for hiring staff resulted in a significant moving around of the working population, depending upon whether or not these measures involved public subsidies. The paper also estimates the costs for the state budget.

The Unemployment Rate Hysterisis in Europe, by Jean-Philippe Cotis, Ferhat Mihoubi. The unemployment rate in most of the European countries is still quite high when considered in the light of the improvement in basic macroeconomic conditions registered over recent years (drop in oil prices, wage moderation, more profitability...) On the whole, the unemployment rate in Europe seems to be characterized by the fact that it is here to stay, i.e. a hysterisis phenomenon. After having introduced both this concept and the theories which aim at studying the phenomenon, the study examines the empirical tests which have been undertaken for several European countries (France, West Germany, United Kingdom) to corroborate or invalidate the existence of such a phenomenon and to single out the mechanisms by which it might operate.

The Sectorial Dimension of Wage Setting. A Comparative Analysis of American, German and French industries, by Brigitte Dormont, Jean Le Dem. The purpose of this paper is to explore both the sectorial and temporal dimensions of wage-setting by using branch data for American, German and French industries. By taking into account these two dimensions of the data, it is possible to determine what influence an increase in productivity has on wage increase in the three countries: wages in sectors with an above average increase in productivity increase faster than those of other sectors. What is important to find out is what kind of impact productivity can have: will it just have a temporary influence or will it involve more than the catching up effects that are pointed out ?

Wages and Employment in a Share-Economy, by André Zylberberg. In a wage-economy labour is rewarded by a fixed wage which does not vary with the firm's results. In a share-economy, this reward is linked to the actual profits of the firm. This article presents the main macroeconomic properties of a share-economy and compares them with those of a wage-economy. Its main objective is to determine the conditions under which such a profit-sharing scheme could increase the overall employment level.

Lay-offs, Piece-Rates and Profit-Sharing as Incentives, by Kornelius Kraft. Lay-offs, or even just the likelihood of being laid off, profit-sharing and piece-rates are incentives which can be used alternatively. In particular, laid off wage earners have expenses even if they do end up finding work with the same remuneration. The purpose of the paper is to empirically test to what extent these incentives do increase effectiveness, based on information from German firms. Piecework pay is apparently not effective, profit-sharing is and lay-offs increase productivity but only underneath a certain threshold, regardless of the remuneration level.

Participation of Employers in Company Profits: A Study based on Data from the Balance Sheet Data File (1982-1986), by Philippe Girard. Wage-earners' participation in company profits has become more and more popular these past few years. Company profitability, and not company size, is the determining factor in the actual decision to opt for employee participation. The purpose of employee participation is not to replace wage increase, nor favoring wage moderation which can be the case with profit-sharing. Companies may however negotiate agreements providing for benefits for wage earners over and above the legal scheme. The more a company's profits are in the growing stage, the more advantageous it is for it to go beyond the legal threshold. The attributed sums are entirely tax-free and remain available for the company during eight years, thereby providing an unexpensive means of increasing the company's equity.

Wages schemes of manual workers in time of crisis: What the strategic decisions are ? (the case of France), by Bénédicte Reynaud. This paper examines how the structure of the wage setting system, (time-wages, wages based on output per man, staff output) changed in France from 1978 to 1986. The analysis focuses on the manufacturing and the housing and public works sectors. On the basis of a sectorial analysis an attempt was made at accounting for the increased use of the time-wage system and the decrease in wage systems based on output bonuses. The crucial factors for this could be improvement in qualifications and the economic situation of each particular sector (modernization strategies, profitability...).

Wage Indexation: the 1983 Break, by Pierre Ralie, Joël Toujas-Bernate. In France in 1983, after the freeze on prices and wages, a specific policy was implemented to reduce wage indexation on prices, thereby making the job market more flexible. Similar policies were enforced in most of the OECD countries. However econometric studies are generally not very successful in revealing the consequential breaks in wage equations. This article shows that the wage indexation coefficient which was equal to one before 1982 has been reduced by about one-third since 1983 on a Phillips curb estimation.