We propose a theory that emphasizes the role of managers for the production and allocation of human capital in firms. Managers invest time to train junior employees, and acquire information about the juniors' abilities that is valuable for job assignments. This dual role of managers matters...

We study how transition has affected human resource policies of a Russian heavy industry firm. Our data set contains personnel files of 1538 white-collar workers over 17 years: from 1984 to 2000. We find career paths before the first year of Gaidar's reforms, 1992, when Russian transition to a...

In an RCT, a large retail chain’s CEO sets new goals for the managers of the treated stores by asking them “to do what they can” to reduce the employee quit rate. The treatment decreases the quit rate by a fifth to a quarter, lasting nine months before petering out, but reappearing after a...

Transition provides an unexplored opportunity to study how changes in ownership affect structure and human resource policies of firms. We investigate a unique data set (17 years, 1500 white collar workers) of a Russian insider-privatized firm. In contrast to conventional beliefs about...

Managers ("bosses") are central to the development and allocation of human capital in firms ("talent management") because they both train junior employees and acquire private information about the juniors' abilities. While a multi-divisional firm would want to allocate workers to jobs wherever...