Science Policy Research Report: Employee Non-compete Agreements

离职后契约（又称离职后契约）。（“竞业禁止协议”）已经使用了600多年，但在过去的25年里，它引起了美国决策者的相当大的关注。美国佛罗里达州、爱达荷州、乔治亚州、犹他州、夏威夷、纽约州、俄勒冈州、新罕布什尔州、伊利诺伊州等州通过了有关竞业禁止的新立法。德克萨斯州、路易斯安那州、威斯康星州、伊利诺伊州、蒙大拿州、科罗拉多州和南卡罗来纳州的最高法院裁决对竞业禁止的可执行性产生了重大影响。此外，马萨诸塞州和其他地方正在进行改革。在国家一级，已经考虑了旨在限制对低工资工人使用竞业禁止的立法。然而，竞业禁止协议的最佳政策处方很难直截了当，正如各州采取的反对改革所证明的那样，一些州收紧了竞业禁止的可执行性，而另一些州则放松了可执行性。这种模糊性的存在部分是因为存在多个利益相关者（工人、企业和地区），对他们来说，竞业禁止的理论影响并不明显；此外，这些各方的利益可能是对立的。鉴于政策问题的重要性及其理论上的模糊性，经验证据对于帮助指导立法举措至关重要。该项目的重点是在美国的背景下发表的关于竞业禁止协议的实证文章。分析的层次包括对工人、公司和地区的影响。在个人层面上，分析的结果包括州内和州际流动、工资、培训、动机和专业化。在公司层面，分析的结果包括财务绩效、创新、员工留任和并购活动。在区域和国家层面，分析的结果包括生产力、创业精神、创造就业机会和知识传播。通过审查产生结果的识别策略以及用于执行这些策略的数据集，对这些结果在不同层次上的因果证据进行了批判。这些识别策略包括评估州一级竞业禁止可执行性的变化，比较受竞业禁止影响的公司或工人，使用工具变量来解释可能受不同时间和州的不同竞业禁止政策影响的行动的内生性，以及随机对照实验。除了因果证据外，还评估了来自调查和其他实地工作的关于使用竞业禁止的风格化事实。

Post-employment covenants (a.k.a. "non-compete agreements") have been used for more than 600 years but have attracted considerable attention from U.S. policymakers in the past quarter-century. U.S. states including Florida, Idaho, Georgia, Utah, Hawaii, New York, Oregon, New Hampshire, and Illinois have adopted new legislation regarding non-competes. Supreme Court rulings in Texas, Louisiana, Wisconsin, Illinois, Montana, Colorado, and South Carolina have materially affected the enforceability of non-competes. Moreover, reform efforts are underway in Massachusetts and elsewhere. At the national level, legislation aimed at curbing the use of non-competes for low-wage workers has been considered. The optimal policy prescription for non-compete agreements is hardly straightforward, however, as evidenced by the opposing reforms adopted by various states, some tightening non-compete enforceability whereas others have loosed enforceability. This ambiguity exists in part given that there are multiple stakeholders (workers, firms, and regions) for whom the theoretical impact of non-competes is non-obvious; moreover, the interests of these parties may be opposed. Given both the importance of the policy issue and its theoretical ambiguity, empirical evidence is essential to help guide legislative initiatives.The project focuses on published empirical articles regarding non-compete agreements in the context of the United States. Levels of analysis include implications for workers, firms, and regions. At the individual level, outcomes analyzed include intra- and inter-state mobility, wages, training, motivation, and specialization. At the firm level, outcomes analyzed include financial performance, innovation, employee retention, and merger & acquisition activity. At the regional and national level, outcomes analyzed include productivity, entrepreneurship, job creation, and knowledge diffusion. Causal evidence across these outcomes at various levels is critiqued by reviewing the identification strategies to produce the findings as well as the datasets used to execute those strategies. These identification strategies include assessing the changes in state-level non-compete enforceability, comparing firms or workers more vs. less likely to be affected by non-competes, using instrumental variables that account for the endogeneity of actions that might be influenced by differential non-compete policies across time and states, and randomized controlled experiments. In addition to causal evidence, stylized facts regarding the use of non-competes from surveys and other fieldwork are assessed.