Patault, B. (2023). Customer capital spillovers: evidence from sales managers in international markets American Economic Journal: Applied Economics.

Expanding their customer base is crucial for firms to grow. This paper leverages sales managers{\textquoteright} job-to-job transitions to better un- derstand how buyer-seller relationships form. Combining unique French firm-to-firm trade data with matched employer-employee data, we carry out an event-study analysis that exploits the tim- ing of sales managers{\textquoteright} transitions from one firm to another for identification. We find that recruiting a sales manager increases by 36% the probability to export to the buyers of her former firm. The expansion of the firm{\textquoteright}s customer base comes at the expense of the buyer{\textquoteright}s former suppliers. Yet, business stealing is only partial, and thus job-to-job transitions are not zero-sum.