Publications des chercheurs de PSE

Dans cette étude, nous proposons un modèle de la dynamique salariale adapté à une estimation à partir de panels courts comme l’enquête Emploi. Nous utilisons le modèle pour simuler des trajectoires individuelles de salaires au-delà de la période d’enquête et calculer des revenus permanents. Nous mesurons le rapport entre l’inégalité de revenus permanents (inégalité de long terme) et l’inégalité salariale de coupe. Ce rapport est inférieur à un, preuve que la mobilité des revenus est égalisatrice. Cependant, nous constatons le rôle essentiel joué par le risque de chômage dans cette mesure. La mobilité réduit les inégalités sur le long terme dans un échantillon représentatif de travailleurs employés ou en chômage, en grande partie parce que le chômage ne dure pas éternellement. À l’inverse, le risque de chômage est fortement générateur d’inégalité dans l’échantillon des employés. Nous mesurons qu’il annule ainsi la moitié du bénéfice égalisateur de la mobilité salariale.

In this paper, we document whether and how much the equalizing force of earnings mobility has changed in France in the 1990s. For this purpose, we use a representative three-year panel, the French Labour Force Survey. We develop a model of earnings dynamics that combines a flexible specification of marginal earnings distributions (to fit the large cross-sectional dimension of the data) with a tight parametric representation of the dynamics (adapted to the short timeseries dimension). Log earnings are modelled as the sum of a deterministic component, an individual fixed effect and a transitory component which is assumed first-order Markov. The transition probability of the transitory component is modelled as a one-parameter Plackett copula. We estimate this model using a sequential EM algorithm. We exploit the estimated model to study employment/earnings inequality in France over the 1990-2002 period. We show that, in phase with business cycle fluctuations (a recession in 1993 and two peaks in 1990 and 2000), earnings mobility decreases when cross-section inequality and unemployment risk increase. We simulate individual earnings trajectories and compute present values of lifetime earnings for various horizons. Inequality presents a hump-shaped evolution over the period, with a 9% increase between 1990 and 1995 and a decrease afterwards. Accounting for unemployment yields an increase of 11%. Moreover, this increase is persistent, as it translates into a 12% increase in the variance of log present values. The ratio of inequality in present values to inequality in one-year earnings, a natural measure of immobility or of the persistence of inequality, remains remarkably constant over the business cycle.

We study linear factor models under the assumptions that factors are mutually independent and independent of errors, and errors can be correlated to some extent. Under the factor non-Gaussianity, second-to-fourth-order moments are shown to yield full identification of the matrix of factor loadings. We develop a simple algorithm to estimate the matrix of factor loadings from these moments. We run Monte Carlo simulations and apply our methodology to data on cognitive test scores, and financial data on stock returns.

Postel-Vinay and Robin’s (2002) sequential auction model is extended to allow for aggregate productivity shocks. Workers exhibit permanent differences in ability while firms are identical. Negative aggregate productivity shocks induce job destruction by driving the surplus of matches with low ability workers to negative values. Endogenous job destruction coupled with worker heterogeneity thus provides a mechanism for amplifying productivity shocks that offers an original solution to the unemployment volatility puzzle (Shimer, 2005). Moreover, positive or negative shocks may lead employers and employees to renegotiate low wages up and high wages down when agents’ individual surpluses become negative. The model delivers rich business cycle dynamics of wage distributions and explains why both low wages and high wages are more procyclical than wages in the middle of the distribution and why wage inequality may be countercyclical, as the data seem to suggest is true.

We document changes in labour supply, wage and education by gender and marital status using the British Household Panel Survey, 1991-2008, and seek to disentangle the main channels behind these changes. To this end, we use a version of Goussé, Jacquemet, and Robin (2016)'s search-matching model of the marriage market with labour supply, which does not use information on home production time inputs. We derive conditions under which the model is identified. We estimate different parameters for each year. This allows us to quantify how much of the changes in labour supply, wage and education by gender and marital status depends on changes in the preferences for leisure of men and women and how much depends on changes in homophily.

We develop a search model of marriage where men and women draw utility from private consumption and leisure, and from a non-market good that is produced in the home using time resources. We condition individual decisions on wages, education, and an index of family attitudes. A match-specific, stochastic bliss shock induces variation in matching given wages, education, and family values, and triggers renegotiation and divorce. Using BHPS (1991–2008) data, we take as given changes in wages, education, and family values by gender, and study their impact on marriage decisions and intra-household resource allocation. The model allows to evaluate how much of the observed gender differences in labor supply results from wages, education, and family attitudes. We find that family attitudes are a strong determinant of comparative advantages in home production of men and women, whereas education complementarities induce assortative mating through preferences.

L’homogamie économique est un phénomène largement documenté, qui est souvent interprété comme résultant d’une préférence pour l’entre-soi. Pourtant, les caractéristiques des conjoints dans un ménage conditionnent non seulement leur satisfaction à être ensemble mais également leurs décisions de division du travail. Nous présentons dans cet article une approche qui englobe à la fois le processus de formation des couples, le partage des ressources au sein du ménage, et la complémentarité des conjoints dans les activités du couple. Appliquée à l’Allemagne entre 2013 et 2019, cette approche montre que l’homogamie salariale est concentrée dans le haut de la distribution, que l’éducation a un poids très important dans les complémentarités des conjoints, et que le salaire et l’éducation jouent un rôle similaire dans les modalités de partage du revenu du ménage.