Do contracts influence behavior independent of the law governing their enforceability? We explore this question in the context of employment noncompetes, using nationally representative data for 11,500 labor force participants. We show that noncompetes are associated with reductions in employee...

Employment contracts for most employees are not publicly available, leaving researchers to speculate on whether they contain post-employment restrictions on employee mobility, and if so, what those provisions look like. Using a large sample of publicly available CEO employment contracts, we are...

Employee mobility as a conduit for knowledge transfer to a business competitor is a growing source of concern for many employers in the modern business environment where the skills, relationships, and knowledge embedded in a firm’s employees has become an important source of competitive...

Covenants not to compete (“noncompetes”) remain a controversial tool for employers to restrict employee post-employment mobility, particularly in an increasingly cross-jurisdictional business world. Amid the growing attention focused on the impact of noncompetes in legal and business...

This Article examines a specific policy issue that goes to the heart of the larger debate surrounding the changing employment relationship: How should the law of covenants not to compete adapt to the changing landscape of the U.S. labor market and to the increasing importance of a...

This brief, written for the "Unrigging the Labor Market" convening on June 13, 2018 at Harvard Law School, summarizes the empirical research on the relationship between covenants not to compete, their enforceability, and wages