Using the near universe of online job postings from 2007 to 2019, we construct a firm-level metric of local labor market competition. We find that firms hiring in more competitive labor markets tend to have lower financial leverage. To establish causality, we exploit the establishment of Amazon...

We find that the positive impact of a firm’ own innovations on its own growth is similar in more and less competitive industries. In contrast, the negative impact of rival firms’ innovations on a firm’s growth (creative destruction) is significantly stronger in less competitive industries,...

The proliferation of copycats poses a severe threat to brand manufacturers in the e-commerce era. Product innovation is a key strategy for brand manufacturers to enhance their market competitiveness and effectively combat copycats, which also may be beneficial or harmful to the environment. Yet,...