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Human Capital Portability and Worker Career Choices: Evidence from M&A Bankers
by Yufeng Wu, UIUC

Wednesday, November 18, 2020 | 9:00am - 10:30am | ZOOM, Room 339


Abstract


We estimate a dynamic model with endogenous human capital accumulation and job separations using a novel data that contains M&A advisors' deal advising history and career trajectory. Our estimation shows that a substantial portion of bankers' human capital is not portable across firms, despite that those firms perform highly similar tasks. Such non-portability shapes bankers' career decisions and significantly influences the composition of the M&A advisory industry (the rise of boutique banks).