A Retrospective Analysis of the Acquisition of Target’s Pharmacy Business by CVS Health: Labor Market Perspective

Enas Farag; Alaa Abdelfattah; Chris Compton; Anna Stansbury; Marshall Steinbaum

doi:10.1162/rest.a.1739

A Retrospective Analysis of the Acquisition of Target’s Pharmacy Business by CVS Health: Labor Market Perspective

Enas Farag¹; Alaa Abdelfattah²; Chris Compton³; Anna Stansbury⁴; Marshall Steinbaum⁵

¹ Department of Economics, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Faculty of Economics and Political Science, Cairo University · ² Occidental College · ³ Lightcast · ⁴ MIT Sloan School of Management · ⁵ University of Utah Department of Economics

The Review of Economics and Statistics 2026

Abstract We analyze the labor market impact of CVS Health’s acquisition of Target’s pharmacy business in December 2015 using Lightcast job postings data. Using differencein- differences and triple-difference designs, we find meaningful negative effects of the merger on posted pay. In our preferred specification, we estimate that the acquisition reduced posted pay in affected labor markets by 2.9%. We test for heterogeneous merger effects by occupational characteristics, finding that the merger caused pay to fall by more in lower-paid occupations than in higher-paid occupations.

DOI: 10.1162/rest.a.1739
Pages: 1-46
Language: en
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