סמינר במימון חשבונאות

  Private Equity and Human Capital Risk 

Abstract

We analyze employee-level data of more than 190,000 employees who were affected
by leveraged buyouts in Germany. All employees of LBO targets are matched to similar
employees according to a range of characteristics. We study the impact of LBOs
on employees’ wages, employment, and their career paths and distinguish how LBOs
affect different segments of the labor market. The overall influence of LBOs is positive
for wages and negative for employment, but both effects are small compared to job
turnover and wage changes observed for matching employees not affected by LBOs.
Employees with more job-related skills, younger employees and those with less specific
human capital tend to benefit most from LBO-related restructuring, consistent with
the hypothesis that LBOs foster technological and organizational change and benefit
those whose human capital is enhanced by these processes.