We show that the social capital embedded in employees' networks contributes to firm performance. Using novel, individual-level network data, we measure a firm's social capital derived from employees' connections with external stakeholders. Our directed network data allow for differentiating...

This paper identifies an externality of a firm's unionization that affects the capital structure decisions of other, non-unionized firms within a local labor market. We find that union victory in a firm leads non-unionized firms to increase their market leverage ratio by 0.9 to 1.3 percentage...

This paper investigates whether employees in conjunction with their professional networks function as information intermediaries. Collectively, employees have access to value-relevant information that can be distributed through both their direct professional contacts and the contacts of their...

Declining worker power has been advanced as an explanation for dramatic generational changes in the U.S. macroeconomic environment such as the substantial decline in labor's share of the national income, the loss of consumer purchasing power, and growing income and wealth inequality. In this...

Firms reduce investment when facing downward wage rigidity (DWR), the inability or unwillingness to adjust wages downward. I construct DWR measures and exploit staggered state-level changes in minimum wage laws as an exogenous variation in DWR to document this fact. Following a one standard...

We examine whether natural disaster experiences affect households' portfolio choice decisions. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, we find that adversely affected households are less likely to participate in risky asset markets. After a disaster shock, households...