The purpose is to provide some empirical evidence for promoting new insights into the economics of education. Particular attention is paid to the concept of competence and its influence on employee reward. The paper aims at comparing the impact on fixed earnings and flexible pay of the traditional human capital theory variables (education and experience) on the one hand and of specifically identified and assessed competences, on the other hand.
The objective is to test if the HCV (years of schooling, years of labour market experience) and competences substitute or complement each other in the definition of earnings.