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IZA Discussion Paper No. 14843
November 2021
Employer Market Power in Silicon Valley

Adam Smith alleged that employers sometimes secretly collude to reduce labor earnings. This paper examines an important case of such behavior: illegal no-poaching agreements through which information-technology companies agreed not to compete for each other's workers. Exploiting the plausibly exogenous timing of a US Department of Justice investigation, I estimate the effects of these agreements using a difference-in-differences design. Data from Glassdoor permit the inclusion of rich employer- and job-level controls. On average, the no-poaching agreements reduced salaries at colluding firms by 4.8 percent. Stock bonuses and ratings of job satisfaction were also negatively affected. These estimates are consistent with considerable employer market power.

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Mark Fallak
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+352 585-855-526
World of Labour
Olga Nottmeyer
olga.nottmeyer@liser.lu
+352 585-855-501
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Christina Gathmann
christina.gathmann@liser.lu

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