ABSTRACT
Due to the legal safeguards that surround them, changes in the fixed wages of capital market banks are like the progress of a large ocean liner that can only be diverted from its course slowly and laboriously. Every year only minor inflections are observed, caused by potential increases – in themselves highly structured – or the impact of employees leaving and joining the firm. On the other hand, the allocation of variable wages usually undergoes a radical overhaul from one year to the next, and the distribution of bonuses is constantly supervised by all actors. The process that leads to the distribution of bonuses at the start of the year (December-January in Anglo-American banks; FebruaryMarch in French banks) in actual fact lasts the entire year.
