Wages and Human Capital in the U.S. Finance Industry: 1909–2006*

2012 ◽  
Vol 127 (4) ◽  
pp. 1551-1609 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Philippon ◽  
Ariell Reshef
Keyword(s):  
Human Capital ◽  
Past Century ◽  
Job Complexity ◽  
Finance Industry ◽  
Financial Deregulation ◽  
Size Distribution Of Firms ◽  
Skill Intensity ◽  
Time Space ◽  
Earnings Risk ◽  
The U.S

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.

Human Capital and Technological Transition: Insights from the U.S. Navy

2011 ◽  
Vol 71 (3) ◽  
pp. 704-729 ◽  
Author(s):  
Darrell J. Glaser ◽  
Ahmed S. Rahman
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Human Capital ◽  
Specialized Training ◽  
Naval Academy ◽  
Technological Transition ◽  
Wage Premia ◽  
Naval Officers ◽  
The U.S

We explore the effects of human capital on workers during the latter nineteenth century by examining the U.S. Navy. Naval officers belonged either to a regular or an engineer corps and had tasks assigned for their specialized training. We compile education and career data for officers from Naval Academy and navy registers for the years 1858 to 1907. Wage premia for “engineer-skilled” officers deteriorated over their careers; more traditionally skilled officers enjoyed higher gains in earnings and more frequent promotions. This compelled those with engineering skills to leave the service early, hindering the navy's capacity to further technologically develop.

scholarly journals The Economization of Diversity

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 471-485
Author(s):  
James M. Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Human Capital ◽  
Racial Inequality ◽  
Racial Ideology ◽  
Economic Values ◽  
Affective Labor ◽  
Flagship University ◽  
Diversity Discourse ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Diversity Metrics

Through a case study of an ongoing diversity initiative at Diversity University (DU), a public, flagship university in the U.S. South, the author’s research advances understanding of the discursive relationship between neoliberalism and contemporary racial ideology. As part of a larger ethnographic project, the author draws on more than ten years worth of diversity discourse at DU to illuminate diversity’s economization: the process whereby specific formations of economic values, practices, and metrics are extended toward diversity as justification for DU’s efforts. The analysis responds to three questions: (1) How is diversity economized by the organization? (2) How is this economization articulated through organizational discourse on diversity? and (3) How does the economization of diversity potentially reconfigure race and racial subjectivities? The findings reveal three interrelated processes that facilitate diversity’s economization: diversity as investment, diversity metrics, and diversity as affective labor. Together these processes congeal and convert multicultural principles and practices into economic ones. Consequently, diversity’s economization recasts nonwhite racial subjectivity as human capital for DU and its white publics, minimizing and entrenching existing racial inequality in the process.

Book Reviews

Transfers ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 145-164
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Speed Limits ◽  
Nineteenth Century America ◽  
Time Space ◽  
Electrical Industry ◽  
The U.S ◽  
The Way

Jeffrey T. Schnapp, Speed Limits Charissa Terranova Mark Simpson, Trafficking Subjects: The Politics of Mobility in Nineteenth-century America Cotten SeilerTim Cresswell and Peter Merriman, Geographies of Mobilities: Practices, Spaces and Subjects Gopa SamantaAharon Kellerman, Personal Mobilities Marcel EndresMatthew Beaumont and Michael Freeman, eds., The Railway and Modernity: Time, Space, and the Machine Ensemble Dorit MüllerWilliam D. Middleton and William D. Middleton III, Frank Julian Sprague: Electrical Inventor and Engineer and Frederick Dalzell, Engineering Invention: Frank J. Sprague and the U.S. Electrical Industry Bob PostTom Vanderbilt, Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What it Says About Us) Clay McShaneLee Friedlander, America By Car Charissa TerranovaDaniel Sperling and Deborah Gordon, Two Billion Cars: Driving towards Sustainability Rudi Volti

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