Do contracts influence behavior independent of the law governing their enforceability? We explore this question in the context of employment noncompetes, using nationally representative data for 11,500 labor force participants. We show that noncompetes are associated with reductions in employee...

We examine the use of noncompete agreements (NCAs) and their relationship with wage bargaining and wage outcomes using new data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997. NCAs cover 18% of the workers in our sample and adoption patterns are broadly consistent with prior research. The...

Every empirical approach to causal inference relies on untestable identifying assumptions. Yet, just 5% of recent empirical studies in top management journals test for sensitivity to the violation of these assumptions. To address this gap, we highlight recent methods that examine how sensitive...