This paper analyzes the role three personal traits-cognitive and non-cognitive ability, and height-play in the market for CEOs. We merge data on the traits of more than one million Swedish males, measured at age 18 in a mandatory military enlistment test, with comprehensive data on their income,...

In the secondary art market, artists play no active role. This allows us to isolate cultural influences on the demand for female artists' work from supply-side factors. Using 1.5 million auction transactions in 45 countries, we document a 47.6% gender discount in auction prices for paintings....

Bankers are directors of Federal Reserve Banks. I document that a) banker directors of the New York Fed attend more meetings about the financial sector; b) elections for Reserve Bank directorships are more contested for bankers, but less so for large banks and American Banking Association...

The subprime crisis highlights how little we know about the governance of banks. This paper addresses a long-standing gap in the literature by analyzing board governance using a sample of banking firm data that spans forty years. We examine the relationship between board structure (size and...