WEITZENBLUM Thomas

This thesis proposes an analysis of pensions in the context of an economy characterized by informal employment and the presence of income risk. The first chapter provides a historical perspective on pensions in Turkey, taking into account the underlying socio-economic dynamics and social policies. It suggests that structural economic problems and inadequate social policies have reinforced the relationship of informality to the labor market and contributed to the development of social support mechanisms that complement public insurance. The second chapter develops a general equilibrium model of an economy where informal employment is made possible by a random and imperfect tax audit and where public pensions and a social support norm coexist. In equilibrium, an uncertain audit induces informal employment and increases the level of capital through a decrease in the average cost of labor, while social support replaces public pensions.The third chapter introduces a partial equilibrium analysis through evolutionary dynamics where preferences to work in the informal sector can be observed when there are non-market insurance possibilities substituting public pensions. When political competition is introduced, the results show that governments may neglect measures on informality to win elections. The final chapter analyzes pensions at the level of individual choices between pay-as-you-go and pay-as-you-go when individuals face income risks and may behave in a myopic manner. The income risk and myopia hypotheses reveal the role of administrative costs, tax exemptions, and government as regulators of funded pensions. The results also show that low-income and myopic agents may underestimate the contributions they have to make, the impact of contributions on total accumulation, and suffer a loss of welfare in retirement.

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This thesis is devoted to the study of heterogeneity as a result of individual income fluctuations. We apply the methodology of heterogeneous agent models to explore this link from two perspectives. First, we focus on the study of the determinants of wealth distribution. We build a detailed model of the French economy by distinguishing seven socio-professional categories, and by integrating inheritance. The gradual construction of a model that faithfully reproduces the distribution of wealth then requires taking into account a bequest motive, as well as the existence of differentials in savings returns. We evaluate the impact of inheritance on the concentration of wealth, and find that inheritance slightly increases inequality, but mostly affecting the middle classes, and little the upper wealth fractiles. The degree of intergenerational mobility in terms of income is sufficiently high that inheritance allows low-income agents to enter the middle classes. Second, we isolate the risk of unemployment and construct a job search model with precautionary savings. We then determine the optimal long-run compensation profile, which is found to be regressive and lower than its current level. We then study the feasibility of moving to the long-run optimum from normative and positive perspectives. In normative terms, it appears that it is not desirable to lower the allocation to its long-run optimum, because the transition is costly for agents. They must increase their precautionary savings, and thus reduce their consumption on the transitional path. In positive terms, we study the political-economic equilibrium, and show that for plausible voting frequencies, the equilibrium compensation is higher than the optimum.