Noncompete Agreements and the Welfare of Consumers
研究竞业限制协议如何通过影响员工创业和公司投资，在消费者福利之间产生权衡，发现市场结构和投资性质起关键作用，且公司最看重该协议的行业反而对消费者伤害更大。
Employee spin-offs harm incumbent firms by increasing competition (benefiting consumers) and preventing firm owners from making beneficial investments in workers who may later spin off (harming consumers). We model noncompete agreements (NCAs) as solutions for the firm and analyze the resulting trade-off for consumers. We show that market structure and the nature of investment play large roles. Counterintuitively, increased investment benefits have the potential to harm consumers such that industries where firms value NCAs the most are those where harm is greater. Finally, we draw two analogies between NCAs and antitrust and show how those areas inform NCA policy.