Knowledge that Transforms

Backers and opponents argue over the pros and cons of legislation forbidding trading by informed insiders. Yet a lack of reliable empirical data about the effects of such legislation inhibits a conclusive scientific evaluation. We overcome this problem by resorting to laboratory markets and find that insider legislation has significant negative effects on multiple market dimensions: under insider legislation, (1) markets are less liquid, (2) markets are less informationally efficient, and (3) uninformed traders׳ earnings (before redistribution of illicit insider gains) are lower.

Much nonmanagerial work is routine, with all workers having similar output most of the time. However, failure to address occasional challenges can be very costly, and consequently easily detected, while challenges handled well pass unnoticed. We analyze job assignment and worker monitoring for such “guardian” jobs. If monitoring costs are positive but small, monitoring is nonmonotonic in the firm’s belief about the probability that a worker is good. The model explains several empirical regularities regarding nonmanagerial internal labor markets: low use of performance pay, seniority pay, rare demotions, wage ceilings within grade, and wage jumps at promotion.

Private equity firms are often criticized for laying off workers, but the evidence on who loses their jobs and why is scarce. This paper argues that explanations for job polarization also explain layoffs after private equity buyouts. Buyouts reduce agency problems, which triggers automation and offshoring. Using rich employer-employee data, we show that buyouts generally do not affect unemployment incidence. However, unemployment incidence doubles for workers in less productive firms who perform routine or offshorable job tasks. Job polarization is also much more marked among workers affected by buyouts than for the economy at large.

We investigate the impact of local social pressure on firms’ firing decisions. Using linked employer-employee data, we show that secondary establishments located further away from headquarters have higher dismissal rates than those located closer. The effect of distance on dismissals is stronger, the greater the visibility of the firm in the local community of its headquarters and the larger the degree of selfishness of that community. We show that these findings can be explained by the social pressure exerted by the communities where firms’ headquarters are located, which induces CEOs to refrain from dismissing at short distance from their headquarters.