Customer Capital Spillovers: Evidence from Sales Managers in International Markets

Bérengère Patault and Clémence Lenoir

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 2024, vol. 16, issue 4, 404-43

Abstract: Expanding their customer base is crucial for firms to grow. This paper leverages sales managers' job-to-job transitions to better understand how buyer-seller relationships form. Combining unique French firm-to-firm trade data with matched employer-employee data, we perform an event study analysis that exploits the timing of sales managers' transitions from one firm to another for identification. We find recruiting a sales manager increases by 36 percent the probability to export to the buyers of her former firm. The expansion of the firm's customer base is detrimental to the buyer's former suppliers. Yet business stealing is partial; job-to-job transitions are not zero-sum.

JEL-codes: D12 D22 D25 J62 L14 L25 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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DOI: 10.1257/app.20220572

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