Firms added to the S&P 500 index join a prestigious and exclusive club. They want to fit in the club, which creates a “keeping up with the Joneses” effect. Firms pay more attention to their index peers after inclusion and their investment, external financing, and payouts comove more with...

In this paper, we study the effects of common ownership, the extent to which firms are linked via common owners, on employee earnings in U.S. local labor markets. Between 1999 and 2017, common ownership in local labor markets has more than doubled. Panel regressions show that employee earnings...