Peer performance can influence the adoption of financial innovations and investment styles. We present evidence of this type of social influence: recent stock returns that local peers experience affect an individual's stock market entry decision, particularly in areas with better opportunities for social learning. The likelihood of entry does not decrease as returns fall below zero, consistent with people not talking about decisions that have produced inferior outcomes. Market returns, media coverage, local stocks, omitted local variables, short sales constraints, and stock purchases within households do not seem to explain these results.

What makes a successful CEO? We combine a near-exhaustive sample of male CEOs from Swedish companies with data on their cognitive and noncognitive ability and height at age 18. CEOs differ from other high-skill professions most in noncognitive ability. The median large-company CEO belongs to the top 5% of the population in the combination of the three traits. The traits have a monotonic and close to linear relation with CEO pay, but their correlations with pay, firm size, and CEO fixed effects in firm policies are relatively low. Traits appear necessary but not sufficient for making it to the top.