Microeconomic foundations of non-compensatory wage differences in Ivorian industry: econometric applications on an "employee-employer" panel.

Summary The aim of this thesis is to analyze the ways in which wages contribute to the performance of Ivorian manufacturing firms. Taking into account the unobservable heterogeneity of employees and firms in the estimation of earnings equations, made possible by the use of matched panel data, makes it possible to obtain measures of returns to human capital variables corrected for different sources of bias and to highlight the role of firm-specific wage policies. The characteristics of firms appear as new segmentation criteria of the Ivorian labor market. The results obtained show, however, that the industrial structure is not the source of non-compensatory wage differentials and that these differentials are more likely to be externalities due to the accumulation of human capital acting at the micro level. By recognizing that information asymmetries are inherent in the employment relationship, a dynamic version of the sociological model of the efficiency wage theory allows for the incentive nature of the employment contract. Wage rigidity can then be explained by the existence of cooperation between employer and employee. The estimates conducted do not invalidate this justification of the efficiency wage theory, but they do show that these non-compensatory wage differences are greater between socio-professional categories than between sectors. The interest then turns to the internal structure of the firm. The analysis extended to a model of interlocking agency relationships makes it possible to determine simultaneously the optimal wages and the hierarchical structure of the firm. By introducing the moral hazard of the principal, we show that the delegation of control is efficient except in the case of blackmail by the supervisor.