Abstract We study the allocation and compensation of human capital in the U.S. finance industry over the past century. Across time, space, and subsectors, we find that financial deregulation is associated with skill intensity, job complexity, and high wages for finance employees. All three measures are high before 1940 and after 1985, but not in the interim period. Workers in finance earn the same education-adjusted wages as other workers until 1990, but by 2006 the premium is 50% on average. Top executive compensation in finance follows the same pattern and timing, where the premium reaches 250%. Similar results hold for other top earners in finance. Changes in earnings risk can explain about one half of the increase in the average premium; changes in the size distribution of firms can explain about one fifth of the premium for executives.

Abstract We study the allocation and compensation of human capital in the finance industry in a set of developed economies in 1970–2011. Finance relative wages generally increase—but not in all countries, and to varying degrees. Trading-related activities account for 50% of the increases, despite accounting for only 13% of finance employment, on average. Financial deregulation is the most important factor driving up wages in finance; it has a larger effect in environments where informational rents and socially inefficient risk taking are likely to be prevalent. Differential investment in information and communication technology does not have causal explanatory power. High finance wages attract skilled international immigration to finance, raising concerns for “brain drain.”

The magnitude and the direction of net international capital flows do not fit neoclassical models. The fifty U.S. states comprise an integrated capital market with very low barriers to capital flows, which makes them an ideal testing ground for neoclassical models. We develop a simple frictionless open economy model with perfectly diversified ownership of capital and find that capital flows among the states are consistent with the model. Therefore, the small size and “wrong” direction of net international capital flows are likely due to frictions associated with national borders, not to inherent flaws in the neoclassical model.