All of my work in labour economics adopts the assumptions of Economics of convention. In particular, what is the value of work - its productivity - is a judgment based on plural conventions of competencies according to jobs, firms, occupations, activities, etc. The matching uncertainty does not relate to a level of productivity (which would have to be measured with a margin of error in imperfect and/or incomplete information) but stems from the fact that there are potentially many ways to define the value of work, productivity itself, or the quality of a person and a job. In order to control the uncertainty of a given situation, the actors shape it by using conventional rules, principles or tools that support their representations, decisions and actions. That is the basis of the plurality of labour markets, corporate HR strategies and individual career paths.

The work in this area proposes to analyse the functioning of the labour market, by basing it on the recruitment logic of firms. It is in fact a "conventionalist" reading of a "conventional" hypothesis in labour economics: matches between workers and firms are risky and heterogeneous.  The Economics of convention then raises the problem of defining the quality of these matches. This leads to an interest in the "valuation power" of firms (which attribute a value to individuals when they evaluate candidates that they select or existing employees that they pay) and in the "investments in forms" of the matching function (the intermediaries and channels that "shape" markets by defining their rules, their boundaries and the formats of information on jobs and candidates, hence a plurality of matching dynamics).

Mobilised surveys: OFER (Dares, 2005, 2016), Employment surveys (Insee, 2003-...), ...

In line with the work carried out on firms' recruitment practices and methods of access to recruitment, this more recent work focuses on firms' training practices with regard to the employees they have just recruited and on the career paths of these employees, both within and outside companies. The main issue is the link between training and recruitment. Are these two terms in the equation seen as complementary by firms or as an alternative? Which firms train the employees they recruit? The second question is that of the professional trajectory of new entrants: does the training secure their subsequent career path?

Mobilised survey: DEFIS (Céreq, 2015-...)