Research

Monopsony in the High-Skilled Migrant Labor Market-Evidence from H-1B Petition Data

with Seohee Kim
Presentations: Wharton Migration and Organizations Conference 2022; The Society of Labor Economists (SOLE) Annual Meeting 2023; Imperfect Competition in the Labor Market Workshop 2023, Institutfür Arbeitsmarkt und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nuremberg

Abstract: This paper examines monopsony power in the labor market for high-skilled migrants, focusing on employer concentration and its impact on wages. Using the universe of H-1B visa petitions, we find the H-1B labor market is 34% more concentrated than the broader U.S. market. We then analyze the causal impact of H-1B employer concentration on H-1B wages using the exogenous variation in concentration resulting from the random market-level H-1B visa lottery win rate. Our results show that for a median salary H-1B worker, increasing employer concentration from the 25th to the 75th percentile reduces the annual salary by 5.5%, or $4.7k. For first-time applicants at smaller employers, whose status is tied to their sponsor, the same increase lowers wages by roughly 19%. Simulating the FY2027 wage-weighted selection rule, we find little effect on employer concentration because the rule’s weights penalize mid-sized employers rather than the dominant firms that drive concentration.

Innovation and the Enforceability of Noncompete Agreements

with Matthew Johnson and Michael Lipsitz [NBER Working Paper #31487]
Revise and Resubmit, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy.
Presentations: Wharton People and Organizations Conference 2022; APPAM 2022; Sixteenth Annual FTC Microeconomics Conference 2023
Media: The Business Journals, WIRED

Abstract: Firms restrict workers’ mobility with Noncompete Agreements (NCAs). We find that state-level law changes making NCAs easier to enforce (``stricter’’ enforceability) leads to fewer patents in that state, an effect that reflects reduced innovation. Stricter NCA enforceability slows new business formation, inventors’ job mobility, and knowledge diffusion. At the same time, consistent with alleviating hold-up concerns, it encourages R\&D investment; although higher investment raises firms’ patenting ceteris paribus, it is not enough to offset the broader innovation losses from reduced dynamism. Technology-specific analyses reveal that our state-level estimates, if anything, understate the negative nationwide effects of NCA enforceability on innovation.

OSHA Inspections, Productivity, and Management

with Nicholas Bloom, David Levine and Matthew Johnson