ABSTRACT
As a theory of long-term dynamics seeking to develop an institutional macroeconomics régulation theory has paid particular attention to the institutional forms which constitute accumulation regimes, i.e. money, competition and the ‘wage-labour nexus’. In this perspective régulation theorists have studied the levels of the average wage and its development, observed over a long period, in order to identify the laws of wage formation (United States: Aglietta, 1976; France: CEPREMAP-CORDES, 1978; Boyer, 1978). This research came to the conclusion that the principles of wage determination (in terms of both level and development) are influenced by history: they depend on configurations of the wage-labour nexus and hence, ultimately, on different corresponding modes of régulation.
