Labor

Competition authorities and analysts are increasingly focused on the impact of mergers and acquisitions on worker welfare. Using a novel dataset on Canadian firms and workers, David Arnold, Kevin Milligan, Terry S. Moon and Amirhossein Tavakoli test the empirical validity of several theories on how M&A may help or harm workers.

Critics of the Federal Trade Commission’s lawsuit last week to block the Kroger-Albertsons merger claim that the agency incorrectly limits the relevant buyer-side market to unionized grocery workers. Steve C. Salop argues that the critics are wrong, and that standard antitrust analysis shows the FTC has it right.

Although the antimonopoly neo-Brandeisians and the labor movement share many goals, including a desire to reduce the power of big business, significant tensions exist, such as labor’s past support for mergers when they advance the ability of workers to unionize. Kate Andrias traces the history of labor’s relation with antitrust to show that, despite historical and contemporary tensions, there have also been deep connections between the two movements that show how they can better complement each other in the future.

Noncompete agreements, which impose contractual limits on an employee’s ability to work after leaving a job, are regulated or banned in all states. But employers can potentially get around legal limitations on noncompetes by asking workers to sign confidentiality agreements that have similar functional effects. In a new article, Camilla A. Hrdy and Christopher B. Seaman provide empirical evidence that a significant number of employment agreements contain broad confidentiality provisions that place noncompete-like restrictions on workers.

Excerpted from THE INFLUENCER INDUSTRY: The Quest for Authenticity on Social Media © 2023 by Emily Hund. Reprinted by permission of Princeton University Press.

In new research, Taylor Begley, Peter Haslag, and Daniel Weagley find that when firms begin sharing a common director, there is a significant reduction in the number of employees that switch jobs between the two companies. The reduction is largest when the firms compete in the same labor market and for those employees who are most costly for firms to replace. The results show the link between overlapping board members and anticompetitive labor practices is a surprisingly widespread phenomenon.

Kroger and Albertsons say they need to merge to compete with Walmart. Claire Kelloway argues that what they really want is Walmart’s monopsony power, and permitting mergers on these grounds will only harm suppliers, workers, and consumers.

Marianne Bertrand describes the contributions of Claudia Goldin, this year's Nobel prize winner in economics, as well as her relationship with Goldin as a colleague.

In new research, Sabien Dobbelaere, Grace McCormack, Daniel Prinz, and Sándor Sóvágó find that mergers negatively impact labor market outcomes. Mergers result in job losses, and the earnings of workers who lose their jobs don’t recover for several years on average. The authors find these negative consequences are more likely attributable to the restructuring of labor forces than subsequent firm market power.

Do labor markets in Europe or the United States and Canada experience more monopsony power? In a new paper published in the University of Chicago Law Review, Satoshi Araki, Andrea Bassanini, Andrew Green, Luca Marcolin, and Cristina Volpin provide comparisons of monopsony power between the two regions, documenting similar levels of concentration across labor markets despite generally stronger protections in Europe. They also discuss the effects of such concentration on employment and wages, ending with potential regulatory reforms to address these issues.