1,244 research outputs found
Less Finance, Less Inequality? Ten Years After the Crisis
Drawing on his research on the structure of remuneration in the financial industry and on a collective project underway studying the evolution of inequalities in ten countries, Olivier Godechot, CNRS Senior researcher, codirector of the MaxPo, shows that the decline in financial activity following the crisis and the regulation of the sector did not necessarily reduce remuneration in finance and, consequently, the level of national wage inequality
Finance and the rise in inequalities in France
Based on the DADS, a very detailed French database on wages, we show that wage inequalities started to increase in France in the mid-1990s. This phenomenon is limited to the top end of income distribution and concerns mainly the top 0.1%, whose share of total salaries increased from 1.2% to 2% between 1996 and 2007. This increase in inequality was accompanied by some changes in the social composition of this wage elite. These include a decline in employees in the provinces, in CEOs; and an increase in lower rank management like chief officers and other administrative managers, in sportspersons, and in Paris Region employees. A sector approach shows that finance (3% of private sector employees) is responsible for half of the rise in inequalities at the top end of wage distribution. We discuss the role of the size of financial activity in the tremendous increase in top financial wages.Inequalities ; wages ; finance ; superstars ; France
The Chance of Influence: A Natural Experiment on the Role of Social Capital in Academic Hiring
The effect of social capital is often overrated because contacts and centrality can be a consequence of success rather than its cause. Randomized or natural experiments are an excellent way to assess the real causal effect of social capital, but these are rare. This paper relies on data from one such experiment: recruitment at the EHESS, a leading social science institution in France, between 1960 and 2005. The EHESS recruitment process uses an electoral commission to produce a first-stage ranking of applicants, which
is then provided to the faculty assembly for final voting. The commission is partly composed of faculty members drawn at random, a feature that this article exploits in order to compare the chances for success of applicants whose contacts have been drawn to sit on the commission (treated) versus those whose contacts have not been drawn (control). It shows that a contact such as a PhD advisor has a causal impact, especially for assistant professor hiring exams: it doubles the chance of being ranked and increases the share of votes by 10 percent. This phenomenon may explain part of the classic âacademic inbreedingâ issue
The chance of influence: A natural experiment on the role of social capital infaculty recruitment
The effect of social capital is often overestimated because contacts and centrality can be a consequence of success rather than its cause. Only rare randomized or natural experiments can assess the real causal effect of social capital. This paper relies on data from one such experiment: faculty recruitment at the Ăcole des Hautes Ătudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) between 1960 and 2005, a leading French institution of higher education in the social sciences. It exploits the fact that the electoral commission, a hiring committee which produces a first ranking of applicants, is partly composed of faculty members drawn at random. It shows that when the PhD advisor is randomly drawn, it doubles the chances of an applicant of being shortlisted
Le salaire dépend-il du sexe du supérieur ?
Les supĂ©rieurs femmes promeuvent-elles une plus grande Ă©galitĂ© salariale entre hommes et femmes ? Par ailleurs, mĂȘme si elles voulaient promouvoir plus dâĂ©galitĂ©, elles pourraient manquer de pouvoir,non seulement pour mettre en Ćuvre cette politique mais aussi pour amĂ©liorer les salaires de lâensemble de leurs subordonnĂ©s hommes comme femmes. En nous fondant sur lâenquĂȘte SalSa et lâenquĂȘte COI, nous montrons que les supĂ©rieurs femmes semblent effectivement rĂ©duire le diffĂ©rentiel de salaire hommeâfemme. Cette position est toutefois associĂ©e Ă des salaires plus faibles pour leurs subordonnĂ©s. Cette situation peut ĂȘtre liĂ©e Ă des biais de sĂ©lection : les femmes deviendraient plus facilement des supĂ©rieures dans des secteurs, des mĂ©tiers, des services moins valorisĂ©s, oĂč les salaires sont plus faibles. MĂȘme en multipliant les contrĂŽles des effets de sĂ©lection mesurables, les salariĂ©s qui ont un supĂ©rieur femme touchent 2,5 Ă 4 % de moins que ceux qui ont un supĂ©rieur homme. En revanche, mĂȘme si le phĂ©nomĂšne demande encore plus ample confirmation, cet Ă©cart en fonction du sexe du supĂ©rieur semble plus important lorsque le salariĂ© est un homme (â5 Ă â10 %) que lorsqu'il est une femme (0 % Ă â3 %). Sous lâencadrement dâune femme, les Ă©carts hommesâfemmes seraient donc sensiblement rĂ©duits : de 30 % Ă 85 %. LâinterprĂ©tation de ce phĂ©nomĂšne nâen est encore quâĂ ses dĂ©buts. Quatre pistes sont proposĂ©es : des diffĂ©rences observĂ©es entre les positions dâencadrement masculines et fĂ©minines, lâimpact Ă position hiĂ©rarchique identique de caractĂ©ristiques individuelles corrĂ©lĂ©es au sexe du supĂ©rieur, la diffĂ©rence de disposition des hommes et des femmes vis-Ă -vis de la nĂ©gociation et de la compĂ©tition, et enfin un comportement discriminatoire des entreprises Ă lâĂ©gard des demandes des femmes
Getting a Job in Finance:The Strength of Collaboration Ties
âWeak tiesâ, a valuable aid in getting a job, are generally work ties. One reason for this feature is not that former colleagues increase oneâs information but rather that they value the pursuit of past collaboration. We examine the consequence of the collaboration ties hypothesis in the financial industry labor market. In finance, the labor market values the assets that financial operatives take with them from one firm to another, such as knowledge, know-how and customers. Since assets are to a certain extent shared among co-workers, it is worth hiring business relations and former colleagues or moving in teams: this enables a better transfer of assets such as idiosyncratic work routines, distributed knowledge, or joint customers. To demonstrate our claims we rely on an online survey launched with eFinancialCareers.fr collected in September 2008 among French financial employees. This questionnaire shows that working at the core of financial markets favors the accumulation of key moveable assets on the one hand and of collaboration ties on the other. That is, collaboration ties and key moveable assets are strongly correlated. The moving of key assets, collaboration ties and notably the combination of those two dimensions all result in increased wages.Les liens faibles, une aide apprĂ©ciable pour trouver un emploi, sont en gĂ©nĂ©ral des relations de travail, moins parce que les anciens collĂšgues augmentent lâinformation personnelle que parce quâils valorisent la poursuite dâune collaboration antĂ©rieure. Cette hypothĂšse des liens de collaboration est ici testĂ©e dans le cas du marchĂ© du travail financier. Ce dernier valorise les « actifs » que les opĂ©rateurs peuvent emporter avec eux en allant dâune firme Ă une autre, câest-Ă -dire, le savoir, le savoir-faire et les clients. Ces « actifs » Ă©tant plus ou moins partagĂ©s entre collĂšgues travaillant ensemble, recruter des anciens partenaires dâaffaires, des anciens collĂšgues ou partir en Ă©quipe est une bonne stratĂ©gie. La base empirique est une enquĂȘte en ligne conduite en septembre 2008 avec eFinancialCarreers.fr auprĂšs de salariĂ©s Français travaillant dans la finance. Cette enquĂȘte montre que travailler au cĆur des marchĂ©s financiers favorise lâaccumulation dâactifs clĂ©s transfĂ©rables dâune part et de liens de collaboration dâautre part. DĂ©placer ces actifs, les liens de collaboration et plus encore une combinaison des deux contribuent Ă lâĂ©lĂ©vation des salaires.Arbeitsbeziehungen sind meist âschwache Beziehungenâ, die bei der Arbeitssuche eine nĂŒtzliche Hilfe sein können, weniger weil die ehemaligen Arbeitskollegen die Egoinformationen erhöhen, als dass sie den Erhalt der frĂŒheren Zusammenarbeit stĂ€rken. Diese Hypothese der Arbeitsbeziehungen wird hier speziell im Finanzbereich ĂŒberprĂŒft. Letzterer betont die Aktiva, die die Angestellten von einem Unternehmen zum nĂ€chsten mit sich nehmen, nĂ€mlich Wissen, Know-how und Kunden. Da diese Aktiva mehr oder weniger unter Arbeitskollegen ausgetauscht werden, erweisen sich die Einstellung ehemaliger GeschĂ€ftspartner, frĂŒherer Kollegen oder der geschlossene Weggang eines Teams als eine gute Strategie. Diese Untersuchung basiert auf einer internetgestĂŒtzten Befragung von frz. Mitarbeitern im Finanzbereich, die im September 2008 von eFinancialCarreers.fr durchgefĂŒhrt worden ist. Diese Befragung verdeutlicht, dass die Arbeit im Herzen der FinanzmĂ€rkte sowohl die Ansammlung ĂŒbertragbarer Aktiva als auch die Arbeitsbeziehungen selbst fördert. Sie zeigt darĂŒberhinaus, dass die Verschiebung der Aktiva, der Arbeitsbeziehungen und mehr noch die VerknĂŒpfung beider zu einer Gehaltserhöhung fĂŒhrt
Inequality:A Piketty et al. Moment in the Social Sciences
What does the world success of Pikettyâs Capital in the 21st Century (2014) reveal? This book is not just one of the most astonishing bestsellers in the social sciences in recent years, but it may also signal an important shift in the way we consider inequality in economics and sociology, in the social sciences and the public arena, in political debate and day-to-day conversations. [First paragraph]Note from the edito
Financialization Is Marketization! :A Study on the Respective Impact of Various Dimensions of Financialization on the Increase in Global Inequality
In this paper, we study the impact of financialization on the rise in inequality in 18
OECD countries from 1970 to 2011 and measure the respective roles of various forms
of financialization: the growth of the financial sector; the growth of one of its subcomponents,
financial markets; the financialization of non-financial firms; and the financialization
of households. We test these impacts using cross-country panel regressions
in OECD countries. As dependent measures we use Soltâs (2009) Gini index, the World
Top Incomes Database, and OECD inter-decile inequality measures. We show first that
the share of the finance sector within the GDP is a substantial driver of world inequality,
explaining between 20 and 40 percent of its increase from 1980 to 2007. When we
decompose this financial sector effect, we find that this evolution was mainly driven
by the increase in the volume of stocks traded in national stock exchanges and by the
volume of shares held as assets in banksâ balance sheets. By contrast, the financialization
of non-financial firms and of households does not play a substantial role. Based on this
inequality test, we therefore interpret financialization as being mainly a phenomenon of
marketization, redefined as the growing amount of social energy devoted to the trade of
financial instruments on financial markets
Le salaire dépend-il du sexe du supérieur ?
Les supĂ©rieurs femmes promeuvent-elles une plus grande Ă©galitĂ© salariale entre hommes et femmes ? Par ailleurs, mĂȘme si elles voulaient promouvoir plus d'Ă©galitĂ©, elles pourraient manquer de pouvoir, non seulement pour mettre en Ćuvre cette politique mais aussi pour amĂ©liorer les salaires de l'ensemble de leurs subordonnĂ©s hommes comme femmes. En nous fondant sur l'enquĂȘte SalSa et l'enquĂȘte COI, nous montrons que les diffĂ©rentiels de salaires entre hommes et femmes sont effectivement plus faibles lorsque le supĂ©rieur est de sexe fĂ©minin. Cette position est toutefois associĂ©e Ă des salaires plus faibles pour l'ensemble des subordonnĂ©s. La faiblesse relative des salaires sous la supervision d'une femme peut ĂȘtre liĂ©e Ă des biais de sĂ©lection : les femmes deviendraient plus facilement des supĂ©rieures dans des secteurs, des mĂ©tiers, des services moins valorisĂ©s, oĂč les salaires sont plus faibles. MĂȘme en multipliant les contrĂŽles des effets de sĂ©lection mesurables, les salariĂ©s qui ont un supĂ©rieur femme touchent 2,5 Ă 4 % de moins que ceux qui ont un supĂ©rieur homme. En revanche, mĂȘme si le phĂ©nomĂšne demande encore plus ample confirmation, cet Ă©cart de salaire en fonction du sexe du supĂ©rieur semble plus important lorsque le salariĂ© est un homme que lorsqu'il est une femme. Sous l'encadrement d'une femme, les Ă©carts hommes-femmes seraient de ce fait rĂ©duits de 30 % Ă 85 %. L'interprĂ©tation de ce phĂ©nomĂšne n'en est encore qu'Ă ses dĂ©buts. Quatre pistes sont proposĂ©es : des diffĂ©rences inobservĂ©es entre les positions d'encadrement masculines et fĂ©minines, l'impact Ă position hiĂ©rarchique identique de caractĂ©ristiques individuelles corrĂ©lĂ©es au sexe du supĂ©rieur, la diffĂ©rence de disposition des hommes et des femmes vis-Ă -vis de la nĂ©gociation et de la compĂ©tition, et enfin un comportement discriminatoire des entreprises Ă l'Ă©gard des demandes des femmes
Should we clash or should I go? :The impact of low wage and bad working conditions on the exit-voice trade-off
Although Hirschmanâs exitâvoice theoretical model has been applied to labor markets, research up to now has not tested one of its most important features: the impact of job quality on exitâvoice strategies. Hirschmanâs model of consumer behavior explains that those individuals unsatisfied with a productâs quality are more likely to âvoice,â whereasthose more concerned with its price are more likely to âexit.â A rationale for this trade-
off is based on information: first, information on the price of alternative options is much more accessible than information on quality; second, voice produces more information than exit and favors opportunities for specific improvements. We transpose Hirschmanâs assumptions to labor markets and use the French SalSa survey and DADS, declaration by employers on social data, to examine the conditions under which French employees are more likely to exit, and the conditions under which they are more likely to voice. Our results support the Hirschmanian hypothesis. A deterioration by one unit
in our working-conditions index increases the probability of participation in collective action by 5 percentage points. An increase in log hourly wage by one unit decreases the probability of quitting by 5 percentage points
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