October 2019
Article
Review of Financial Studies

Returns to Talent and the Finance Wage Premium

By: Boris Vallée and Claire Célérier

Format:Print

Abstract

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 in finance since the 1980s than in other sectors. Both wage returns to project size and the elasticity of project size to talent are also higher in this industry. Last, the share of performance pay varies more for talent in finance. These findings are supportive of finance wages reflecting the competitive assignment of talent in an industry that exhibits a high complementarity between talent and scale.

Keywords

Compensation; Finance; Compensation and Benefits; Wages; Banking Industry

Citation

Vallée, Boris, and Claire Célérier. "Returns to Talent and the Finance Wage Premium." Review of Financial Studies 32, no. 10 (October 2019): 4005–4040.