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Cited by 1,534Labor Law and Work DynamicsLabor market dynamics and wage inequalityLaw, Economics, and Judicial Systems

Outsourcing at Will: The Contribution of Unjust Dismissal Doctrine to the Growth of Employment Outsourcing

Autor, David H.·2003·Journal of Labor Economics
DOI 10.1086/344122
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Abstract

Over the past 3 decades, the U.S. Temporary Help Services (THS) industry grew five times more rapidly than overall employment. Contemporaneously, courts in 46 states adopted exceptions to the common law doctrine of employment at will that limited employers’ discretion to terminate workers and opened them to litigation. This article assesses the contribution of “unjust dismissal” doctrine to THS employment specifically, and outsourcing more generally, finding that it is substantial—explaining 20% of the growth of THS between 1973 and 1995 and contributing 500,000 additional outsourced workers in 2000. States with smaller declines in unionization also saw substantially more THS growth.

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  • The proposed pre-trends test differs from the standard event study pre-trends test (Autor, 2003), which has been shown to be invalid when treatment effects are heterogeneous (Abraham and Sun, 2018).

    “This test differs from the standard event study pre-trends test (see Autor, 2003), which has been shown to be invalid when treatment effects are heterogeneous (see Abraham and Sun, 2018).”

    From Two-Way Fixed Effects Estimators with Heterogeneous Treatment Effects (2020) · cites this paper as Autor, 2003

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Authors
Autor, D. H.
Affiliations
National Bureau of Economic Research (US)
Corresponding author
Autor, David H.
ORCID
Autor, David H.
Venue
Journal of Labor Economics
Publisher
University of Chicago Press
Published
2003-01
Volume
21
Issue
1
Pages
1-42
ISSN
  • 0734-306X (ISSN-L)
  • 1537-5307
DOI
10.1086/344122
OpenAlex
W3121301164
Cited by
1,534
References
0
Citations by year
2026: 108 · 2025: 118 · 2024: 84 · 2023: 110 · 2022: 134 · 2021: 155 · 2020: 150 · 2019: 134 · 2018: 126 · 2017: 84 · 2016: 66 · 2015: 34 · 2014: 32 · 2013: 37 · 2012: 21
FWCI
92.44
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
Journal of Labor Economics (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Labor Law and Work Dynamics
  • Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Labor market dynamics and wage inequality
  • Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Law, Economics, and Judicial Systems
Keywords
temporary help services, at-will employment, labor litigation, unionization, state labor law, temporary agency work

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