We empirically test the hypothesis that relatively high returns to talent explain the wage premium for working in finance. We exploit a specificity of the French educational system to build a precise measure of talent that we match with compensation data obtained from an educational elite. Using this measure, we show wage returns to talent to be three times higher in the finance industry than in the rest of the economy. This greater sensitivity to talent almost fully explains the level of the finance wage premium, its evolution since the 1980s, and, at the individual level, the pay increase workers obtain when joining the finance industry. Finally, talented workers receive a larger share of variable compensation, and even more so in the finance industry.
This paper provides evidence that supply-side factors significantly drive the high share of unbanked households. Using interstate branching deregulation in the U.S. after 1994 as an exogenous shock, we show that an increase in bank competition is associated with a large drop in the share of unbanked households. The effect is even stronger for populations that are more likely to be rationed by banks, such as black households living in ``high racial bias'' states. The improved access to bank accounts leads to higher savings rates but does not translate to higher levels of indebtedness.
We introduce in a dynamic–contracting framework with moral hazard the possibility of recapitalization as an alternative to liquidation when a firm is in financial distress. This is achieved by considering a loss–averse agent and by allowing (but not requiring) the latter to inject additional capital into the firm when necessary. We show that firm recapitalization may arise in an optimal, long–term contract. As a consequence, we find that there are two mechanisms at a firm’s disposal so as to deal with financial difficulties: one corresponds to a recapitalization process, the other to a liquidation one. The choice of mechanism is based on a cost–benefit analysis.
This paper studies how the investors' attitude towards earnings surprises a®ects the managers' incentives to manipulate earnings in an intertemporal context, where the consensus forecast of the analysts is not exogenously given but determined by the strategic interaction between the analysts and the managers. Our analysis shows that given the asymmetric investors' reaction to earnings surprises, managers have strong incentives to manipulate earnings. In dependence on their time preferences, managers may choose to manipulate the earnings in order to match the consensus forecasts. In this equilibrium, rational investors are systematically fooled. Assuming that managers' preferences are equally distributed in the economy, we also derive conclusions on how the absolute level of manipulation in the economy changes with the investors' preferences, the managers' compensation package and the earnings guidance they may provide to analysts.
