Labor market concentration

How Antitrust Can Better Regulate Thin Labor Markets

Thin markets, characterized by a small number of participants and low transaction volumes, create particular problems for antitrust enforcers. Hiba Hafiz explores...

How Practical Are Biden’s Proposals to Promote Labor Market Competition?

A new report from the Biden administration lays out ways to increase competition in US labor markets. Will they work?

How the Rise of Labor Market Power Helps Explain the Fall of US Manufacturing Employment

A new working paper explores the increase in labor market power in the US and what’s driving it. It shows manufacturing workers...

The Ties that Bind Workers to Firms: No-Poach Agreements, Noncompetes, and Other Ways Firms Create and Exercise Labor Market Power

Collusive no-poach agreements are per se illegal, but noncompete clauses are not. Recent research casts doubt on the rationale for this legal...

Antitrust Should Be Used as a Targeted Response to Employer Concentration, But It Can’t Do Everything

A large and growing body of research demonstrates that employer concentration affects the wages of many American workers. Antitrust is an important...

Antitrust and the FTC: Franchise Restraints on Worker Mobility

As currently formulated, antitrust’s rule of reason approach is not the best tool to deal with vertical noncompete agreements that limit worker...

Why a “Whole-of-Government” Approach is the Solution to Antitrust’s Current Labor Problem

For the majority of America’s regulatory history, the problem of employer monopsony was understood as a competition policy issue that required direct...

Antitrust’s Labor Market Problem

A series of academic studies in recent years highlighted the fact that labor markets are often highly concentrated and that employers use...

Antitrust Law’s Current Stance Toward Workers Violates Its Original Purpose to Balance Power With Powerful Firms

Antitrust law’s present-day bias against democratic cooperation and in favor of top-down corporate control has contributed more broadly to the institutional weakness and perceived...

Antitrust’s Monopsony Problem

Four cases from the past decade alleging employer collusion against workers show that at present, antitrust law is ill-equipped to protect workers. A root...

LATEST NEWS

Income Inequality May Worsen the Spread of Infectious Disease

Income inequality may exacerbate the spread of infectious diseases. In a new paper, Jay Bhattacharya, Joydeep Bhattacharya, and Min Kyong Kim examine the relationship between income inequality and the incidence and prevalence of tuberculosis across countries.

The Classic Theory of Albert O. Hirschman Argues Against the US Chamber’s Case for Non-Competes

Drawing on the theory of Albert O. Hirschman’s  Exit, Voice, and Loyalty, Brian Callaci argues non-compete clauses stifle the important channels of communication between employees and businesses necessary for improving firm competitiveness. The evidence also shows that, despite claims from businesses, non-competes harm rather than reward employees for their loyalty. 

AI For the Antitrust Regulator

Cary Coglianese lays out the potential, and the considerations, for antitrust regulators to use machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms.

Creation over Time in Copyright and Patent

On May 18, the United States Supreme Court decided two intellectual property cases with two seemingly different results. A closer look, however, reveals a complimentary concern with the monopolistic power of first movers and how the legal system should enable innovation from second movers over time, writes Randy Picker.

ESG Standards’ Good, Bad and Ugly

The Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State hosted a virtual event discussing the standards, metrics and disclosures of investments focused on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) goals. The following is a transcript of the event.