A popular TV show about headhunters actually caused real-world stock market chaos for real recruiting companies.
SSRN · March 17, 2026 · 6427250
The Takeaway
Using a TV show launch as a natural experiment, researchers found that retail investors were so influenced by the fictional narrative that they swarmed recruiting industry stocks. This attention-driven buying created massive price fluctuations that were entirely absent in companies the show didn't mention, while institutional investors remained completely unaffected.
From the abstract
This study utilizes the broadcast of the popular television series Game of Hunting in mainland China as a quasi-natural experiment to examine how investor attention impacts stock price volatility. The empirical findings reveal that the broadcast of Game of Hunting increased stock price volatility for headhunting companies. Notably, headhunting companies that attracted lower levels of investor attention before the broadcast exhibited greater stock price volatility. Conversely, headhunting compani