IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mnt/wpaper/2205.html

Anti-Poaching Agreements, Corporate Hiring, and Innovation: Evidence from the Technology Industry

Author

Listed:
  • Daniel Ferrés

  • Gaurav Kankanhalli
  • Pradeep Muthukrishnan

Abstract

Using the 2010 prosecution of U.S. technology firms engaging in anti-poaching agreements as a shock, we study the impact of labor market collusion on corporate hiring and innovation. During the collusive period, cartel firms displayed elevated job posting rates relative to comparable firms that were not party to these agreements. Occupation-level tests show that the effects were amplified in job roles critical to the firms’ operations.Textual analysis of job-ad descriptions provides evidence that cartel firms enjoyed greater bargaining power in the hiring process, with workers being offered lower flexibility, non-wage benefits, and training opportunities. Notably, cartel firms exhibited superior innovative capabilities over the collusive period, while the dissolution of the agreements led to a curtailment in their innovation output. Our results reveal important linkages between firms’ anti-competitive conduct in labor markets and their innovation and market valuations.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel Ferrés & Gaurav Kankanhalli & Pradeep Muthukrishnan, 2022. "Anti-Poaching Agreements, Corporate Hiring, and Innovation: Evidence from the Technology Industry," Documentos de Trabajo/Working Papers 2205, Facultad de Ciencias Empresariales y Economia. Universidad de Montevideo..
    • Handle: RePEc:mnt:wpaper:2205
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www2.um.edu.uy/fcee_papers/2020/Anti_Poaching_Agreements_Corporate_Hiring_and_Innovation_Evidence_from_the_Technology_Industry.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alan B. Krueger & Orley Ashenfelter, 2022. "Theory and Evidence on Employer Collusion in the Franchise Sector," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 57(S), pages 324-348.
    2. Oz Shy & Rune Stenbacka, 2019. "Anti‐Poaching Agreements In Labor Markets," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 57(1), pages 243-263, January.
    3. Leonid Kogan & Dimitris Papanikolaou & Amit Seru & Noah Stoffman, 2017. "Technological Innovation, Resource Allocation, and Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 132(2), pages 665-712.
    4. Vojislav Maksimovic, 1988. "Capital Structure in Repeated Oligopolies," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 19(3), pages 389-407, Autumn.
    5. Suresh Naidu & Yaw Nyarko & Shing-Yi Wang, 2016. "Monopsony Power in Migrant Labor Markets: Evidence from the United Arab Emirates," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 124(6), pages 1735-1792.
    6. Barth, Erling & Dale-Olsen, Harald, 2009. "Monopsonistic discrimination, worker turnover, and the gender wage gap," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(5), pages 589-597, October.
    7. Abadie, Alberto & Diamond, Alexis & Hainmueller, Jens, 2011. "Synth: An R Package for Synthetic Control Methods in Comparative Case Studies," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 42(i13).
    8. Davidson Heath & Christopher Mace, 2020. "The Strategic Effects of Trademark Protection," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 33(4), pages 1848-1877.
    9. Espen R. Moen & Åsa Rosén, 2004. "Does Poaching Distort Training?," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 71(4), pages 1143-1162.
    10. Augustin Landier & Vinay B. Nair & Julie Wulf, 2009. "Trade-offs in Staying Close: Corporate Decision Making and Geographic Dispersion," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 22(3), pages 1119-1148.
    11. 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.
    12. Alan Manning, 2021. "Monopsony in Labor Markets: A Review," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 74(1), pages 3-26, January.
    13. Joan Robinson, 1969. "The Economics of Imperfect Competition," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, edition 0, number 978-1-349-15320-6, April.
    14. Alberto Abadie & Javier Gardeazabal, 2003. "The Economic Costs of Conflict: A Case Study of the Basque Country," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 113-132, March.
    15. Gordon M. Bodnar & Charles Tang & Joseph Weintrop, 1997. "Both Sides of Corporate Diversification: The Value Impacts of Geographic and Industrial Diversification," NBER Working Papers 6224, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Jarrad Harford & Sandy Klasa & William F. Maxwell, 2014. "Refinancing Risk and Cash Holdings," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 69(3), pages 975-1012, June.
    17. Margaret C. Levenstein & Valerie Y. Suslow, 2011. "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do: Determinants of Cartel Duration," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 54(2), pages 455-492.
    18. Tanja Artiga González & Markus Schmid & David Yermack, 2019. "Does Price Fixing Benefit Corporate Managers?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(10), pages 4813-4840, October.
    19. Viral Acharya & Sergei A. Davydenko & Ilya A. Strebulaev, 2012. "Cash Holdings and Credit Risk," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 25(12), pages 3572-3609.
    20. Sudipto Dasgupta & Alminas Žaldokas, 2019. "Anticollusion Enforcement: Justice for Consumers and Equity for Firms," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 32(7), pages 2587-2624.
    21. Juan Alcácer & Wilbur Chung, 2007. "Location Strategies and Knowledge Spillovers," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 53(5), pages 760-776, May.
    22. Marinescu, Ioana & Ouss, Ivan & Pape, Louis-Daniel, 2021. "Wages, hires, and labor market concentration," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 184(C), pages 506-605.
    23. Peters, Ryan H. & Taylor, Lucian A., 2017. "Intangible capital and the investment-q relation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(2), pages 251-272.
    24. Iacus, Stefano M. & King, Gary & Porro, Giuseppe, 2012. "Causal Inference without Balance Checking: Coarsened Exact Matching," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(1), pages 1-24, January.
    25. Abadie, Alberto & Diamond, Alexis & Hainmueller, Jens, 2010. "Synthetic Control Methods for Comparative Case Studies: Estimating the Effect of California’s Tobacco Control Program," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 105(490), pages 493-505.
    26. Davidson Heath & Christopher Mace, 2020. "The Strategic Effects of Trademark Protection," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 33(4), pages 1848-1877.
    27. Richard Rogerson & Robert Shimer & Randall Wright, 2005. "Search-Theoretic Models of the Labor Market: A Survey," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 43(4), pages 959-988, December.
    28. Thomas Bourveau & Guoman She & Alminas Žaldokas, 2020. "Corporate Disclosure as a Tacit Coordination Mechanism: Evidence from Cartel Enforcement Regulations," Journal of Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 58(2), pages 295-332, May.
    29. Sun, Qi & Xiaolan, Mindy Z., 2019. "Financing intangible capital," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(2), pages 472-496.
    30. Efraim Benmelech & Nitish Kumar & Raghuram Rajan, 2024. "The Decline of Secured Debt," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 79(1), pages 35-93, February.
    31. Ferrés, Daniel & Ormazabal, Gaizka & Povel, Paul & Sertsios, Giorgo, 2021. "Capital structure under collusion," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 45(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pérez, Jorge & Vial, Felipe & Zárate, Román, 2022. "Urban Transit Infrastructure: Spatial Mismatch and Labor Market Power," Research Department working papers 1992, CAF Development Bank Of Latinamerica.
    2. repec:osf:socarx:kvp2f_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Gibson, Matthew, 2021. "Employer Market Power in Silicon Valley," IZA Discussion Papers 14843, IZA Network @ LISER.
    4. Ferrés, Daniel & Ormazabal, Gaizka & Povel, Paul & Sertsios, Giorgo, 2021. "Capital structure under collusion," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 45(C).
    5. Po-Hsuan Hsu & Dongmei Li & Qin Li & Siew Hong Teoh & Kevin Tseng, 2022. "Valuation of New Trademarks," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(1), pages 257-279, January.
    6. Davidson Heath & Giorgo Sertsios, 2022. "Profitability and Financial Leverage: Evidence from a Quasi-Natural Experiment," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(11), pages 8386-8410, November.
    7. Patel, Pankaj C. & Guedes, Maria João, 2025. "Come and take it: Patenting pedigree and tenacity, takeover defenses, and patent valuation in post-IPO firms," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).
    8. Dalmazzo, Alberto & Leombruni, Roberto & Razzolini, Tiziano, 2023. "Anticipation Effects of EU Accession on Immigrants' Labour Market Outcomes," IZA Discussion Papers 16614, IZA Network @ LISER.
    9. Ferrés, Daniel & Marcet, Francisco, 2021. "Corporate social responsibility and corporate misconduct," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    10. Amore, Mario Daniele & Marzano, Riccardo, 2019. "Family Ownership and Antitrust Violations," CEPR Discussion Papers 14018, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Brummund, Peter & Makowsky, Michael D., 2024. "Monopsony and Local Religious Clubs: Evidence from Indonesia," IZA Discussion Papers 16999, IZA Network @ LISER.
    12. Sertsios, Giorgo, 2020. "Corporate finance, industrial organization, and organizational economics," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    13. Michael Ewens & Ryan H. Peters & Sean Wang, 2025. "Measuring Intangible Capital with Market Prices," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 71(1), pages 407-427, January.
    14. Daniel Albalate & Germà Bel & Ferran A. Mazaira-Font, 2020. "Ensuring Stability, Accuracy and Meaningfulness in Synthetic Control Methods: The Regularized SHAP-Distance Method," IREA Working Papers 202005, University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics, revised Apr 2020.
    15. Bruno Ferman & Cristine Pinto & Vitor Possebom, 2020. "Cherry Picking with Synthetic Controls," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(2), pages 510-532, March.
    16. Sadeghi, Ali & Kibler, Ewald, 2022. "Do bankruptcy laws matter for entrepreneurship? A Synthetic Control Method analysis of a bankruptcy reform in Finland," Journal of Business Venturing Insights, Elsevier, vol. 18(C).
    17. Bischoff, Ivo & Das, Sourav & Kosfeld, Reinhold, 2025. "Does inter-municipal cooperation reduce the intensity of tax competition? Evidence on inter-local industrial parks in Germany," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    18. Dennis Shen & Peng Ding & Jasjeet Sekhon & Bin Yu, 2022. "Same Root Different Leaves: Time Series and Cross-Sectional Methods in Panel Data," Papers 2207.14481, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2022.
    19. César Martinelli & Marco Vega, 2019. "The Economic Legacy of General Velasco: Long-Term Consequences of Interventionism," Revista Economía, Fondo Editorial - Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, vol. 42(84), pages 102-133.
    20. Annalisa Tassi & Adrien Bussy, 2025. "VAT collection only at the retail stage: Evidence on tax compliance," FBK-IRVAPP Working Papers 2025-05, Research Institute for the Evaluation of Public Policies (IRVAPP), Bruno Kessler Foundation.
    21. Pekka Malo & Juha Eskelinen & Xun Zhou & Timo Kuosmanen, 2024. "Computing Synthetic Controls Using Bilevel Optimization," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 64(2), pages 1113-1136, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • G31 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Capital Budgeting; Fixed Investment and Inventory Studies
    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
    • J23 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Demand
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J33 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Compensation Packages; Payment Methods
    • J42 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Monopsony; Segmented Labor Markets

    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:mnt:wpaper:2205. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 bibliographic 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.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Juan Briozzo (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/fceumuy.html .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.