The Equitable Economy

In two recent papers, Matthew E. Kahn and Joseph Tracy examine the outcomes of local labor markets affected by monopsony power. They find that in areas with a high degree of monopsony power, workers earn lower wages but are compensated with lower house prices, at the expense of homeowners. Monopsony markets also experience a “brain drain” over time due to young, educated workers who leave for better opportunities. The rise of work-from-home may accelerate this dynamic by allowing talent to change labor markets without changing residences.

Income inequality may exacerbate the spread of infectious diseases. In a new paper, Jay Bhattacharya, Joydeep Bhattacharya, and Min Kyong Kim examine the relationship between income inequality and the incidence and prevalence of tuberculosis across countries.

Drawing on the theory of Albert O. Hirschman’s  Exit, Voice, and Loyalty, Brian Callaci argues non-compete clauses stifle the important channels of communication between employees and businesses necessary for improving firm competitiveness. The evidence also shows that, despite claims from businesses, non-competes harm rather than reward employees for their loyalty. 

In a field experiment conducted with economists on Twitter, the authors find that users who are identifiable as white, women, and PhD students affiliated with “top-ten” universities are more likely to receive follow-backs.

Todd Gormley and Manish Jha find that institutional investors holding bonds may experience greater investor attention and more active shareholding voting on their equity positions.

Study participants are less likely to accept lower returns in support of social goals when acting as investors versus consumers or donors with a third accepting no reduction in returns. Additionally, those with higher income, women and Democrats were willing to accept lower return in support of social goals than those with lower income, men, Republicans and Independents.

A new collection of scholarly work on the economics of the US healthcare sector is released today. The following is an adaptation of the...

A new empirical study examines whether advancements in automation and robotics have affected intergenerational income mobility. The authors find that parents’ exposure to new...

Investment advisors on both sides of the aisle have coopted ESG for their own exploitative marketing tactics to increase their own assets under management...

The consumer welfare standard employs a collective consumer in its model when evaluating possibly anticompetitive behavior. This aggregated approach fails to recognize that such...