Recent studies indicate that firms often outsource standard and simple tasks, while keeping complex and important inputs inside their boundaries. This observation is difficult to reconcile with the property rights approach of the firm, which suggests that important components should be...

When employers face a trade-off between growing large and paying low wages - that is, when they have monopsony power - some productive employers will decide to acquire fewer customers, forgo sales, and remain small. These decisions have adverse consequences for aggregate labor productivity....

Guest workers on visas in the United States may be unable to quit bad employers due to barriers to mobility and a lack of labor market competition. Using H-1B, H-2A, and H-2B program data, we calculate the concentration of employers in geographically defined labor markets within occupations. We...

This paper brings together the modern research on employer power and employee power by empirically examining the effects of unionization on worker earnings, employment, and inequality across differently concentrated markets. Exploiting national tax reforms to union membership dues as exogenous...

We analyze empirically the effects of urban agglomeration on Italian college graduates' work possibilities as entrepreneurs three years after graduation. We find that each 100,000 inhabitant-increase in the size of the individual's province of work reduces the chances of being an entrepreneur by...

China’s Belt and Road Initiative was introduced in 2013 to revitalise the Silk Road and promote economic development and integration. This paper investigates the economic effects of the opening of the only high-speed rail (HSR) line in northwest China which connects China’s northwestern...