This paper examines the contribution of investments in Information Technology (IT) and in advertising to the output and profits of Spanish banks, in the period 1983–2003. We find that the growth in the stock of IT capital explains one third of output growth of banks, and that an additional investment in IT of one million euros may be substituted for twenty-five workers. The paper also finds that advertising investments increase the demand for bank services with an elasticity of 0.22 for deposits and 0.11 for loans. For all the assets considered, the null hypothesis that banks use the profit-maximizing amount of services per period cannot be rejected with the data.

This article presents evidence on the relationship between compensation ratios and spans of control within hierarchical organizations. We find that compensation ratios are lower than span of control at any position within the hierarchy, which is consistent with an elasticity of compensation to a number of subordinates lower than one. Managers’ human capital endowments determine a significant part of the salary differences throughout hierarchical levels, as predicted by models of talent allocation in hierarchies. Differences in the size of firms should be attributed more to differences in their number of hierarchical levels than to variations in the span of control.