CV
Academic positions
Assistant Professor of Economics (W1), tenure track, University of Mannheim (August 2025 - )
Assistant Professor of Finance, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (Sept. 2020 - July 2025, on leave)
Associate Researcher, CRC TR 224 EPoS (Sept. 2025 - )
Associate Faculty, CEMFI (Sept. 2024 - )
Visiting Scholar, Northwestern University (Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Fall 2024)
Education
Ph.D. in Business Economics, Harvard University (Sept. 2014 - May 2020)
M.Sc. in Economics and Social Sciences, Bocconi University (Sept. 2010 - April 2013)
B.A. in International Economics and Management, Bocconi University (Sept. 2007 - Oct. 2010)
Publications
Sforza, Alessandro and Acabbi, Edoardo M.
Credit and Firms’ Organization
2025, Journal of International Economics, Vol. 158, December
Abstract.
We investigate how credit availability affects the organization of firms’ labor. We construct an instrument for firm’s credit supply based on firm-bank credit linkages and conduct an event study on the decision to reorganize the labor force using data on Portuguese firms, workers and banks. We show that the reorganization of the firms’ labor structure is connected to the financing of machines and equipment: firms that invested in machines and equipment are more exposed to credit shortages and reorganize by reducing employment of production workers and specialized workers that are complementary with machines. These findings shed light on how credit dynamics shape labor decisions within firms, providing valuable insights into their behavior in response to financial limitations.
Bertheau, Antoine, Acabbi, Edoardo M., Barcelo, Cristina , Gulyas, Andreas , Lombardi, Stefano , and Saggio, Raffaele
The Unequal Consequences of Job Loss across Countries.
2023, American Economic Review: Insights, Vol. 5, No. 3, pages 393-408
NBER working paper version
Media Coverage: VoxEu.org, World Economic Forum and The Conversation Global in English, LaVoce.info in Italian, The Conversation España in Spanish, Portuguese Economy Research Report in English.
Abstract.
We document the consequences of losing a job across countries using a harmonized research design applied to seven matched employer-employee datasets. Workers in Denmark and Sweden experience the lowest earnings declines following job displacement, while workers in Italy, Spain, and Portugal experience losses three times as high. French and Austrian workers face earnings losses somewhere in between. Key to these differences is that southern European workers are less likely to find employment following displacement. Loss of employer-specific wage premiums explains a substantial portion of wage losses in all countries.
Working Papers
Acabbi, Edoardo M., Alati, Andrea, Mazzone, Luca and Morazzoni, Marta (2026).
Sorting into Entrepreneurial Teams.
New Version!! (April 2026)
Abstract.
This paper studies how entrepreneurs sort into founding teams and how team composition shapes the equilibrium distribution of firms. We develop a theory of career choice and team formation in which skill complementarities make team entrepreneurship attractive for agents with unbalanced skill profiles, while talent similarity makes teaming preferable to other outside options. Using matched employer-employee and balance-sheet data from Portugal, we show that teams combining similar talent with diverse specializations create larger, more productive, and longer-lived firms. We also document a bias in meetings toward similarly-skilled founders and calibrate the model to match this evidence. Meeting bias lowers average wages and output by $12\%$ and $13\%$ respectively by distributing activity towards a higher number of less productive firms, while search frictions \textit{per se} reduce wages and aggregate output by $15\%$ and $13\%$ respectively by preventing highly diverse but specialized individuals from forming successful teams.
Acabbi, Edoardo M., Alati, Andrea and Mazzone, Luca (2026).
The Collapse of Human Capital Ladders in Recessions.
Revise & Resubmit, American Economic Review
Part of the VisitInps project. New version! (Jan 2026)
Previously circulated as “Human Capital Ladders, Cyclical Sorting, and Hysteresis.”
Abstract.
Using administrative data, we document that workers acquire more human capital at more productive firms. Recessions distort workers-firm sorting, flatten the job ladder and impact human capital accumulation, as workers match on average to worse firms. To quantify the aggregate relevance of these effects, we build a directed search model with aggregate risk and worker-firm heterogeneity, in which human capital accumulation depends on firm quality. We estimate the model and show that recessions have persistent negative effects on the productivity of worker-firm matches, with distortions in sorting and human capital accumulation accounting for approximately 35% of cumulative output losses.
Acabbi, Edoardo M., Panetti, Ettore and Sforza, Alessandro (2025).
Labor Share and the Transmission of Liquidity Shocks
Revise & Resubmit, Management Science
Abstract.
We examine how firms’ labor share shape their responses to sudden disruptions of short- term credit supply. Using administrative data on workers, firms and banks in Portugal and exploiting the 2008 global interbank market freeze as an exogenous contraction in bank short-term funding, we show that firms with higher labor share experience significantly larger employment losses and higher exit rates. To explain this heterogeneity, we examine how the labor share interacts with firms’ liquid resources. Firms with high labor share face front- loaded payroll commitments, which tighten short-term financing needs. Consistent with this mechanism, we find that the strongest responses arise among high-labor-share firms with limited working capital or cash per worker. These firms also employ more specialized workers, making labor adjustments more costly. Finally, the interaction of the credit shock with high labor share generates a non-cleansing pattern of reallocation: high-productivity firms with high labor share experience similarly large employment losses and exit rates as firms with lower productivity and high labor share. Overall, our findings demonstrate that the labor share is a central channel through which credit supply shocks propagate to real firm outcomes.
Acabbi, Edoardo M. and Alati, Andrea (2025).
Defusing Leverage: Liquidity Management and Labor Contracts.
Part of the VistInps project. New version! (November 2025)
Abstract.
We test whether firms use flexible contracts to limit the effects of labor-induced operating leverage. Using Italian administrative data, we show that greater reliance on temporary contracts dampens the sensitivity of cash-flow and profit volatility to shocks, especially among high-labor-share firms. Exploiting a staggered liberalization of temporary contracts, we show that the rise in adoption led to decreasing labor compensation, and—among firms with initially rigid labor costs— to an increase in profit margins, a decrease in profit dispersion, and an expansion in debt capacity and investment. Contract mix is thus an active hedging margin shaping financial responses to shocks.
Work in progress
Lombardi, Stefano, Bertheau, Antoine, Saggio, Raffaele, Tuominen, Oona, Acabbi, Edoardo M., Gulyas, Andreas , Palladino, Marco Guido, Renkin, Tobias, and Lattanzio, Salvatore.
The Consequences of Labor Demand Shocks Across Countries.
Acabbi, Edoardo M., Alati, Andrea, Griffy, Ben, Mazzone, Luca, and Rabinovich, Stanislav.
The Optimal Design of Job Retention Schemes.
Acabbi, Edoardo M., Alati, Andrea, Del Prato, Francesco.
The Worker and Firm Components of Monopsony.
Other writings
Molti elogi, ma la riforma del lavoro spagnola ha tanti limiti , with Silvia Vannutelli, June 3rd 2023, article for Il Foglio
