The significance of firm and occupation specific human capital for hiring and promotions

Abstract

This paper analyzes firms' hiring and promotion patterns, and infers the relative significance of the firm- and occupation-specific human capital required for each job rank. The results suggest that firm-specific skills are just as valuable as occupation-specific skills, and that the value of these specific skills increases in job rank. However, there is great heterogeneity across occupations. This paper also shows that the lengths of firm- and occupation-tenure are noisy measures of firm- and occupation-specific human capital, and contrasts our results with those of other recent studies on the returns to firm- and occupation-tenure for wages.