Essays on the determinants of wage inequality[Etudes des déterminants des inégalités salariales]

This thesis investigates the determinants of wage inequality through a behavioral economics perspective. Chapter one analyzes how students make educational choices that will influence the course of their professional careers. Exploiting novel data from the content of letters of motivation written by students, it measures how they update their beliefs about their academic preferences and how they take ability signals into account. Chapter two describes the results of a lab experiment studying people's distributive preferences. It shows that, behind the veil of ignorance, individuals largely favor larger inequality when it is efficient. But when inequality becomes more concrete, a quarter of subjects engage in money burning at the top in order to reduce inequality, even when it does not make anyone better off. A majority of subjects embrace a more equal distribution if their own income or overall efficiency is not at stake. The third chapter investigates how managers' distributive preferences affect wage allocations within firms, using both firm survey data and a lab experiment. It shows that managers hold normative distributive preferences and are willing to pay to implement them. Chapter four analyzes the results of an online experiment on ethnic discrimination conducted on representative samples of the US and Germany. It describes the patterns of ingroup favoritism, both between and within countries. It shows that releasing information about the economic success of ethnic minorities successfully reduces discrimination from the ethnic majority. However, this piece of information can backfire, as it can increase mistrust within minorities.