We show that country characteristics explain most of the cross-sectional variation in bank board independence. In contrast, country characteristics have little explanatory power for the fraction of outside bank directors with experience in the banking industry. Exploiting the time-series...

This paper analyzes the role three personal traits - cognitive and non-cognitive ability, and height - play in the market for CEOs. We merge data on the traits of more than one million Swedish males, measured at age 18 in a mandatory military enlistment test, with comprehensive data on their...

We provide evidence that culture is a source of pricing bias. In a sample of 1.9 million auction transactions in 49 countries, paintings by female artists sell at an unconditional discount of 42.1%. The gender discount increases with measures of country-level gender inequality — even in artist...