To study the role of talent in finance workers' pay, we exploit a special feature of the French higher education system. Wage returns to talent have been significantly higher and have risen faster since the 1980s in finance than in other sectors. Both wage returns to project size and the...

We examine the changes in the relative rewards to cognitive and non-cognitive skill during the time period 1992–2013. Using unique administrative data for Sweden, we document a secular increase in the returns to non-cognitive skill, which is particularly pronounced in the private sector and at...

Returns to experience for U.S. workers have changed over the post-war period. This paper argues that a simple model goes a long way towards replicating these changes. The model features three well-known ingredients: (i) an aggregate production function with constant skill-biased technical change;...

Using university admission cutoffs that generate exogenous variation in college-major choices, we provide causal evidence that enrollment in a business or economics program leads individuals to invest significantly more in the stock market, earn higher portfolio returns, and ultimately...