Talent in Distressed Firms: Investigating the Labor Costs of Financial Distress
利用瑞典微观数据，研究发现企业濒临破产时，认知和非认知技能最高的工人会流失；通过准实验确认金融困境是原因，且人才依赖度高的企业资本结构更保守。
ABSTRACT The importance of skilled labor and the inalienability of human capital expose firms to the risk of losing talent at critical times. Using Swedish microdata, we document that firms lose workers with the highest cognitive and noncognitive skills as they approach bankruptcy. In a quasi‐experiment, we confirm that financial distress drives these results: following a negative export shock caused by exogenous currency movements, talent abandons the firm, but only if the exporter is highly leveraged. Consistent with talent dependence being associated with higher labor costs of financial distress, firms that rely more on talent have more conservative capital structures.