Labor market-based information transfer

This study examines cross-industry labor market-based information transfer in the setting of quarterly earnings conference calls held by S&P 500 firms from 2002 to 2019. We find a significant association between the abnormal stock returns of the announcing firms’ labor market peers and human capital-related information from the conference calls after controlling product market-based information transfer and other confounding factors. Our study extends the literature from product market-based to labor market-based and from intra-industry to cross-industry information transfers and highlights human capital disclosures in conference calls as an important channel through which information is transmitted across peer firms.