Using the near universe of online job postings from 2007 to 2019, we construct a firm-level metric of local labor market competition. We find that firms hiring in more competitive labor markets tend to have lower financial leverage. To establish causality, we exploit the establishment of Amazon...

This paper presents evidence that the exposure to automation technologies has a positive impact on a firm's financial leverage. The effects are more pronounced in firms with greater labor costs, routine task intensity, firing costs, and union coverage. The results are robust when we instrument a...