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The Review of Corporate Finance Studies Vol. 14 No. 3 2025

Human Capital Reallocation across Firms: Evidence from Idiosyncratic Shocks

Erik Gilje1; Jérôme Taillard2; Linghang Zeng2

1 No Affiliation · 2 Babson College

Abstract

We study human capital reallocation following firm-specific idiosyncratic shocks. We analyze relegation battles in the English Premier League, a setting that offers well-identified idiosyncratic shocks as well as both individual-level and firm-level productivity metrics. Following a negative idiosyncratic shock, we find that relatively more productive players move to more productive clubs and maintain their long-term productivity. They get replaced with lower productivity players. Overall, our results show that in a setting with highly transferable and observable skills, idiosyncratic shocks lead to a reallocation of human capital that moves the industry toward a better overall match between individual-level and firm-level productivity.

DOI
10.1093/rcfs/cfae014
Volume
14
Issue
3
Pages
717-751
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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