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Do Non-Compete Covenants Influence State Startup Activity? Evidence From The Michigan Experiment

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  • Gerald A. Carlino

Abstract

This paper examines how the enforceability of employee non compete agreements affects the entry of new establishments and jobs created by these new firms. We use a panel of startup activity for the U.S. states for the period 1977 to 2013. We exploit Michigan’s inadvertent policy reversal in 1985 that transformed the state from a non enforcing to an enforcing state as a quasinatural experiment to estimate the causal effect of enforcement on startup activity. In a difference-in-difference framework, we find little support for the widely held view that enforcement of non-compete agreements negatively affects the entry rate of new firms or the rate of jobs created by new firms. We find that increased enforcement had no effect on the entry rate of startups, but a positive effect on jobs created by these startups in Michigan relative to a counterfactual of states that did not enforce such covenants pre- and post-treatment. Specifically, we find that a doubling of enforcement led to an increase of about 8 percent in the startup job creation rate in Michigan. We also find evidence that enforcing non-competes positively affected the number of high-tech establishments and the level of high tech employment in Michigan. Extending our analysis to consider the effect of increased enforcement on patent activity, we find that enforcement had differential effects across technological classifications. Importantly, increased enforcement had a positive and significant effect on the number of Mechanical patents in Michigan, the most important patenting classification in that state.

Suggested Citation

  • Gerald A. Carlino, 2021. "Do Non-Compete Covenants Influence State Startup Activity? Evidence From The Michigan Experiment," Working Papers 21-26, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
  • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedpwp:92949
    DOI: 10.21799/frbp.wp.2021.26
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Startup activity; Non-compete agreements; regional economic growth;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O30 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - General
    • O38 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Government Policy
    • R11 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes

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