Conventional models of earnings assume that the occupational pay structure reflects the distribution of marginal productivities. Although ubiquitious in the literature, the underlying hypothesis that wages equal marginal products rests on weak empirical footing: extant studies from the 1970s...

This article examines the relationship between institutions and the remuneration of different jobs by comparing the German and Belgian labour markets with respect to a typology of institutions (social representations, norms, conventions, legislation and organizations). The observed institutional...