Becoming more connected to the financial human capitalnetwork may hold the key to improving wage inequality withinthe US finance industry

In an era of stagnant wages for the middle-classes, the financial services industry continues to be very well remunerated, especially in large cities. But to what extent does city-size drive wage inequalities? In new research that tracks the movement of over 20,000 skilled financial workers across 264 US cities between 2007 and 2011, Kuo Siong (Gordon) Tan constructs a financial human capital network. He finds that the network contains 40 financial hubs, which are linked to higher wages. He writes that rather than being a direct function of city size, wage inequality may be more pronounced between cities that are highly networked and those that are not.