Job-to-job transition and wage dispersion: theoretical and empirical approaches.

Summary This thesis proposes a new theory to explain wage dispersion, emphasizing the role of labor market frictions as well as job-to-job transition flows. The structure of the thesis is organized as follows. In the first chapter, we review new developments in job search theory and focus on a fundamental question in labor economics: why are workers paid differently? In chapter 2, we compare the implications of the job search equilibrium model with French data on two dimensions: wage dispersion and transition rates. We use data from the 1990-1999 Employment Survey. In chapter 3, we model the job search theory to give an alternative explanation to the dispersion of equilibrium wages. We re-inspect the role of endogenous search effort in an environment where all workers and firms are identical. In Chapter 4, we examine the impact of the firm on equilibrium wage dispersion and, in particular, on the probability of job-to-job transition.