IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/rfinst/v27y2014i1p301-346.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Wrongful Discharge Laws and Innovation

Author

Listed:
  • Viral V. Acharya
  • Ramin P. Baghai
  • Krishnamurthy V. Subramanian

Abstract

We show that wrongful discharge laws--laws that protect employees against unjust dismissal--spur innovation and new firm creation. Wrongful discharge laws, particularly those that prohibit employers from acting in bad faith ex post, limit employers' ability to hold up innovating employees after the innovation is successful. By reducing the possibility of holdup, these laws enhance employees'innovative efforts and encourage firms to invest in risky but potentially mould-breaking projects. We develop a model and provide supporting empirical evidence of this effect using the staggered adoption of wrongful discharge laws across U.S. states. The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Society for Financial Studies. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com., Oxford University Press.

Suggested Citation

  • Viral V. Acharya & Ramin P. Baghai & Krishnamurthy V. Subramanian, 2014. "Wrongful Discharge Laws and Innovation," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 27(1), pages 301-346, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:rfinst:v:27:y:2014:i:1:p:301-346
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/rfs/hht009
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Miles, Thomas J, 2000. "Common Law Exceptions to Employment at Will and U.S. Labor Markets," Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 16(1), pages 74-101, April.
    2. Howells, Jeremy, 1990. "The location and organisation of research and development: New horizons," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 133-146, April.
    3. Bronwyn H. Hall & Adam Jaffe & Manuel Trajtenberg, 2005. "Market Value and Patent Citations," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 36(1), pages 16-38, Spring.
    4. Acharya, Viral V & Baghai, Ramin & Subramanian, Krishnamurthy, 2009. "Labor Laws and Innovation," CEPR Discussion Papers 7171, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. repec:fth:harver:1473 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Edward P. Lazear, 1990. "Job Security Provisions and Employment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 105(3), pages 699-726.
    7. Sevilir, Merih, 2010. "Human capital investment, new firm creation and venture capital," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 483-508, October.
    8. Agrawal, Ashwini K. & Matsa, David A., 2013. "Labor unemployment risk and corporate financing decisions," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(2), pages 449-470.
    9. Adriana D. Kugler & Gilles Saint-Paul, 2004. "How Do Firing Costs Affect Worker Flows in a World with Adverse Selection?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 22(3), pages 553-584, July.
    10. David H. Autor, 2003. "Outsourcing at Will: The Contribution of Unjust Dismissal Doctrine to the Growth of Employment Outsourcing," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 21(1), pages 1-42, January.
    11. Jean Tirole, 1999. "Incomplete Contracts: Where Do We Stand?," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 67(4), pages 741-782, July.
    12. Max Schanzenbach, 2003. "Exceptions to Employment at Will: Raising Firing Costs or Enforcing Life-Cycle Contracts?," American Law and Economics Review, Oxford University Press, vol. 5(2), pages 470-504, August.
    13. Bronwyn H. Hall & Adam B. Jaffe & Manuel Trajtenberg, 2001. "The NBER Patent Citation Data File: Lessons, Insights and Methodological Tools," NBER Working Papers 8498, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Florian Ederer & Gustavo Manso, 2013. "Is Pay for Performance Detrimental to Innovation?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 59(7), pages 1496-1513, July.
    15. Guido W. Imbens & Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, 2009. "Recent Developments in the Econometrics of Program Evaluation," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(1), pages 5-86, March.
    16. Ariel Pakes & Mark Schankerman, 1984. "The Rate of Obsolescence of Patents, Research Gestation Lags, and the Private Rate of Return to Research Resources," NBER Chapters,in: R&D, Patents, and Productivity, pages 73-88 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. David H. Autor & William R. Kerr & Adriana D. Kugler, 2007. "Does Employment Protection Reduce Productivity? Evidence From US States," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(521), pages 189-217, June.
    18. Giuseppe Bertola, 2004. "A Pure Theory of Job Security and Labour Income Risk," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 71(1), pages 43-61.
    19. Marianne Bertrand & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2003. "Enjoying the Quiet Life? Corporate Governance and Managerial Preferences," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(5), pages 1043-1075, October.
    20. Donohue, John J, III & Heckman, James, 1991. "Continuous versus Episodic Change: The Impact of Civil Rights Policy on the Economic Status of Blacks," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 29(4), pages 1603-1643, December.
    21. Zvi Griliches, 1998. "Patent Statistics as Economic Indicators: A Survey," NBER Chapters,in: R&D and Productivity: The Econometric Evidence, pages 287-343 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    22. Howitt, Peter & Aghion, Philippe, 2006. "Appropriate Growth Policy: A Unifying Framework," Scholarly Articles 4554121, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    23. Hart, Oliver, 1995. "Firms, Contracts, and Financial Structure," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198288817.
    24. Robert C. Bird & John D. Knopf, 2009. "Do Wrongful-Discharge Laws Impair Firm Performance?," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 52(2), pages 197-222, May.
    25. Kortum, Samuel & Lerner, Josh, 1999. "What is behind the recent surge in patenting?1," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 1-22, January.
    26. David H. Autor & John J. Donohue & Stewart J. Schwab, 2004. "The Employment Consequences of Wrongful-Discharge Laws: Large, Small, or None at All?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 440-446, May.
    27. Chesbrough, Henry, 2003. "The governance and performance of Xerox's technology spin-off companies," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 403-421, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G3 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance
    • J5 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining
    • J8 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Standards
    • K31 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law - - - Labor Law

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:rfinst:v:27:y:2014:i:1:p:301-346. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Oxford University Press) or (Christopher F. Baum). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/sfsssea.html .

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.