Labor policies grounded in the fundamental rights of workers can reinforce the aims of a proposed labor antitrust agenda by limiting a firm’s ability to abuse market power. Drawing from studies of guest worker programs that grant firms control over the sponsorship of foreign nationals to work legally in the US, policymakers and economists should consider non-discrimination law, wage standards, and bolstering worker’s ability to quit to reduce a firm’s ability to exercise monopsony power in labor markets.
Does antitrust have a labor market problem? The last few years have seen growing interest among academic scholars in the causes and effects of concentration in US labor markets. Concurrently (and not unrelated), there has been an explosion of interest among policymakers and the general public in the impact that firms with market power may have on wages and working conditions. What do the data say regarding employer concentration and its effect on workers? Is antitrust in its current form equipped to address issues related to labor market power? In an attempt to answer these questions and more, we have decided to launch a series of articles on antitrust and the labor market.
As antitrust experts consider addressing firm power in the labor market, the discourse rarely differentiates between institutional contexts. Focusing on employer concentration and imagining generic interventions to reduce monopsony power for a hypothetical single US labor market could miss a key point...
The Kroger Sued for False Advertising case is raising fresh concerns about transparency in supermarket meat departments, as Animal Outlook accuses the retail giant of misleading in-store marketing...