Orley Ashenfelter

First name
Orley
Last name
Ashenfelter
Abstract
The last decade has witnessed a number of remarkable developments in public policy, laws, and law enforcement that are associated with failures of competition in US labor markets. These include: (1) enforcement actions and antitrust lawsuits with regard to explicit conspiracies to suppress competition in labor markets; (2) the documentation and forced abolition of franchise contracts that include worker "no-poaching" clauses; (3) explicit discussion of the regulation of mergers that affect labor market competition; and (4) legislation and regulation that affect "non-compete' and "non-solicit" clauses in employment contracts. In addition, there have been some highly visible examples of explicit collusion in labor markets, and these have raised questions about the extent to which competition has been damaged. This paper covers one such alleged conspiracy to reduce labor market competition among workers in the studio animation industry.3
Year of Publication
2023
Number
657
Date Published
01/2023
Ashenfelter, O., & Gilgenbach, R. (2023). No-Poaching Agreements as Antitrust Violations: Animation Workers Antitrust Litigation. Retrieved from http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/dsp01z029p802k (Original work published January 2023)
Working Papers
Abstract
The last decade has witnessed a number of remarkable developments in public policy, laws and law enforcement that have been associated with failures of competition in US labour markets. These include: (1) enforcement actions and antitrust law suits regarding explicit conspiracies to suppress competition in labour markets; (2) the documentation and forced abolition of franchise contracts that include worker ‘no-poaching’ clauses; (3) explicit discussion of the regulation of mergers that affect labour market competition; and (4) legislation and regulation affecting ‘non-compete’ and ‘non-solicit’ clauses in employment contracts. In the following, I review the recent developments in public policy. I begin with a deconstruction of a particularly high-level conspiracy to reduce labour market competition in the High-Tech world.
Year of Publication
2023
Number
656
Date Published
06/2023
Ashenfelter, O. (2023). Public policy and labour market competition. Retrieved from http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/dsp01tq57nv28b (Original work published June 2023)
Working Papers
Abstract

This paper summarizes the results of nearly a dozen new papers presented at the Sundance Conference on Monopsony in Labor Markets held in October 2018.  These papers, to be published as a special issue of the Journal of Human Resources, study various aspects of monopsony and failures of competition in labor markets. It also reports on the new developments in public policies associated with widespread concerns about labor market competition and efforts to ameliorate competitive failures. The conference papers range from studies of the labor supply elasticity individual firms face to studies of local labor market concentration to studies of explicit covenants suppressing labor market competition. New policies range from private and public antitrust litigation to concerns about the effect of mergers and inter-firm agreements on labor market competition. We provide a detailed discussion of the mechanics of the Silicon Valley High Tech Worker conspiracy to suppress competition based on Court documents in the case. Non-compete agreements, which are not enforceable in three states already, have also come under scrutiny.  

Year of Publication
2021
Number
652
Date Published
10/2021
Ashenfelter, O., Card, D., Farber, H., & Ransom, M. R. (2021). Monopsony in the Labor Market New Empirical Results and New Public Policies. Retrieved from http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/dsp016m311s43b (Original work published October 2021)
Working Papers
Keywords
Abstract

Based on hourly wage rates from nearly all McDonald’s restaurants, and prices of the Big Mac sandwich, we find an elasticity of the wage with respect to the minimum wage of 0.7. This elasticity does not differ between affected and unaffected restaurants because many restaurants maintain a constant wage ‘premium’ above the minimum wage. Higher minimum wages are not associated with faster adoption of touch-screen ordering, and there is near-full price pass-through of minimum wages. Minimum wages lead to higher real wages (expressed in Big Macs per hour) that are one fifth lower than the corresponding increases in nominal wages.

Year of Publication
2021
Number
646
Date Published
01/2021
Ashenfelter, O., & Jurajda, Štěpán. (2021). Wages, Minimum Wages, and Price Pass-Through: The Case of McDonald’s Restaurants. Retrieved from http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/dsp01sb397c318 (Original work published January 2021)
Working Papers
Abstract

This paper is a non-technical survey of the results of recent quan-
titative analyses of interest arbitration systems operating in the U.S.
It contains a review of the broader context in which arbitration has
become a feature of public sector wage determination, and surveys of
quantitative studies of arbitrator selection and decision—making in
simulation experiments and in practice. For reasons that still remain
unclear, simple statistical analyses continue to confirm a very stable
set of operating characteristics for these systems. The data suggest
that the variability in the outcomes that exists across arbitration
systems is a product either of constraints placed on arbitrator
decisions by the institutional setup or of differences in the behavior
of the parties in response to different institutional setups, and not of
differences in arbitrator behavior.

Year of Publication
1985
Number
185
Date Published
03/1985
Publication Language
eng
Citation Key
In Wei-Chiao Huang (ed.) Organized Labor at the Crossroads, (Kalamazoo,MI:WE Upjohn Institute, 1989)
Ashenfelter, O. (1985). Evidence on US Experiences with Dispute Resolution Systems. Retrieved from http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/dsp01g732d8977 (Original work published March 1985)
Working Papers
Year of Publication
1977
Number
104
Date Published
11/1977
Publication Language
eng
Citation Key
Econometrica, Vol. 48, No. 3, April 1980
Ashenfelter, O. (1977). Unemployment as Disequilibrium in a Model of Aggregate Labor Supply. Retrieved from http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/dsp01dn39x1544 (Original work published November 1977)
Working Papers
Abstract

Econometrics played a major role in the investigation and litigation of the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) successful challenge to the proposed merger between two office superstore chains, Staples and Office Depot. Our goal in writing this essay is to describe the econometric issues at stake in evaluating the FTC’s central claim that the price charged by office supply superstores was related to the number and identity of superstore firms participating in the market. Similar statistical models were relied upon by the FTC and the merging firms to analyze pricing. Our discussion of these models highlights the advantages and disadvantages of alternative approaches to analyzing a panel data set: cross-sectional estimates versus fixed effects estimates. We also describe and evaluate modeling choices that appeared to have substantial influence on the empirical results.

Year of Publication
2004
Number
486
Date Published
05/2004
Publication Language
eng
Citation Key
8265
Ashenfelter, O., Hosken, D., Baker, J., Ashmore, D., & Gleason, S. (2004). Econometric Methods in Staples. Retrieved from http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/dsp016d56zw62f (Original work published May 2004)
Working Papers
Abstract

A real wage rate is a nominal wage rate divided by the price of a good and is a transparent measure of how much of the good an hour of work buys. It provides an important indicator of the living standards of workers, and also of the productivity of workers. In this paper I set out the conceptual basis for such measures, provide some historical examples, and then provide my own preliminary analysis of a decade long project designed to measure the wages of workers doing the same job in over 60 countries—workers at McDonald’s restaurants. The results demonstrate that the wage rates of workers using the same skills and doing the same jobs differ by as much as 10 to 1, and that these gaps declined over the period 2000-2007, but with much less progress since the Great Recession.

Year of Publication
2012
Number
570
Date Published
03/2012
Publication Language
eng
Citation Key
7839
Ashenfelter, O. (2012). Comparing Real Wage Rates. Retrieved from http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/dsp01t435gd01h (Original work published March 2012)
Working Papers