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US executives with a business degree are more likely to oversee declining pay at the businesses they run, yet tend not to deliver an increase in profits or sales, according to a new paper circulated by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Wages at companies that hired managers with business qualifications fell by 6% within five years of their appointment, while the labour share of profits dropped 5 percentage points, the paper, by economists Daron Acemoglu, Daniel le Maire and Alex He, showed.
“Exploiting exogenous export demand shocks, we show that non-business managers share profits with their workers, whereas business managers do not. But consistent with our first set of results, these business managers show no greater ability to increase sales or profits in response to exporting opportunities.”
The paper suggested the schools themselves played a big part in this outcome:
“We estimate that most of the wage and labour share results we present can be explained as the treatment effect of business education rather than a selection effect.”
The researchers also argued there’s not much upside to hiring someone with a business degree instead of one without:
“Our evidence suggests that business managers are not more productive. Firms appointing business managers are not on differential trends and do not enjoy higher sales, productivity, investment, or employment growth following their accession.”
And it’s not just America. Similar trends were seen in Denmark with wages declining 3% when managers with business qualifications are put in charge, according to the study.
