Finance is a vital ingredient for economic growth, but there can also be too much of it. This study investigates what fifty years of data for OECD countries have to say about the role of the financial sector for economic growth and income inequality and draws policy implications. Over the past...

Using monthly and quarterly cross-sectional dispersion in firm level earnings news as a proxy for investor uncertainty about the implications of current aggregate earnings for future discount rates, I find that higher investor uncertainty leads to a lower stock market reaction to aggregate...

Do equity investors care about pay dispersion and income inequality? We address this question by examining equity markets' reaction and investors' portfolio rebalancing in response to the first-time disclosure by U.S. public companies of the ratio of CEO to median worker pay in 2018. We find...

Swedish census data and tax records reveal an astonishing wage compression; the Swedish skill premium fell by more than 30 percent between 1970 and 1990 while the U.S. skill premium, after an initial decline in the 1970s, rose by 8 - 10 percent. Since then both skill premia have increased by...