Common Ownership, Firm Hiring and the Allocation of Human Capita l
Abstract:
We study how common ownership shapes the allocation of human capital across firms in the U.S. venture capital ecosystem. Combining LinkedIn-based employment histor ies from Revelio Labs with comprehensive venture capital investment data fr om PitchBook and VentureXpert, we construct a panel of 94,113 ventures betw een 1990 and 2021. We exploit the staggered adoption of corporate opportuni ty waiver statutes across U.S. states as a plausibly exogenous shock to com mon venture capital ownership. Ventures sharing investors with other firms in the same local market exhibit significant increases in employment and wo rker mobility, with no corresponding increase in wages. Worker reallocation also operates within investor portfolios: bilateral mobility between commo nly owned ventures is significantly higher than between independent ones, e specially when ventures operate in the same industry, suggesting that share d investors facilitate the redeployment of workers across portfolio compani es. The positive effects of common ownership on firm employment and wo rker mobility attenuate in concentrated local labor markets, where concerns about common ownership softening labor market competition are strongest. & nbsp;Our results indicate that common ownership in venture capital generate s network synergies that facilitate the reallocation of human capital acros s portfolio firms, supporting firm growth and aggregate worker mobility, wi th labor market competition concerns emerging only in already-concentrated markets.
DTSTAMP:20260501T040027Z DTSTART:20260508T130000Z DTEND:20260508T140000Z SEQUENCE:0 TRANSP:OPAQUE END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR