Data and Code for: Employer Consolidation and Wages: Evidence from Hospitals

Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s) Elena Prager, Northwestern University; Matt Schmitt, University of California-Los Angeles

Version: View help for Version V1

Name	File Type	Size	Last Modified
Replication_Public			12/02/2020 07:59:PM

Project Citation:

Prager, Elena, and Schmitt, Matt. Data and Code for: Employer Consolidation and Wages: Evidence from Hospitals. Nashville, TN: American Economic Association [publisher], 2021. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2021-01-28. https://doi.org/10.3886/E120834V1

Project Description

Summary: We test whether wage growth slows following employer consolidation by examining hospital mergers. We find evidence of reduced wage growth in cases where both (i) the increase in concentration induced by the merger is large and (ii) workers’ skills are industry-specific. In all other cases, we fail to reject zero wage effects. We consider alternative explanations and find that the observed patterns are unlikely to be explained by merger-related changes besides labor market power. Wage growth slowdowns are attenuated in markets with strong labor unions, and wage growth does not decline after out-of-market mergers that leave local employer concentration unchanged.

Scope of Project

Subject Terms: corporate mergers; monopsony; hospitals; labor market power

JEL Classification:
      I11 Analysis of Health Care Markets
      J31 Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
      J42 Monopsony; Segmented Labor Markets
      L41 Monopolization; Horizontal Anticompetitive Practices

Geographic Coverage: USA

Time Period(s): 1996 – 2014

Universe: US hospitals

Data Type(s): administrative records data; aggregate data

Methodology

Unit(s) of Observation: hospitals

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Published Versions

V1 [2021-01-28]

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DDI 2.5

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