Employee savings in France: what are the issues for compensation policies? A theoretical and empirical examination of profit sharing associated with a company savings plan.

Summary The objective of this thesis is to contribute to the understanding of the stakes of employee savings for compensation policies in French companies. A historical and theoretical perspective first allows us to identify the motivations leading companies to develop a system combining profit-sharing and employee savings plans. Then, through a theoretical model of the "Principal-Agent" type, we explain the characteristics of a contract combining profit-sharing with a PEE. The resulting theoretical predictions are finally validated by an empirical study on individual company and employee data. Based on a propensity score matching estimation, the results reveal that companies that integrate a profit-sharing scheme into their compensation policies pay lower base salaries on average, compensated by the payment of a profit-sharing bonus. Moreover, the latter has a positive and significant impact on profit, but a non-significant effect on the companies' labor productivity. Nevertheless, there is a positive correlation between the implementation of the scheme and labor productivity, which may be due to a selection effect. This work leads us to defend the thesis that the introduction by firms of a scheme combining profit-sharing and the PEE is aimed not only at incentive effects but also at controlling labor costs. Moreover, when the PEE gives rise to employee shareholding, it enables companies to pursue capital stabilization objectives.