Current Research:
I have received a Louis O. Kelso/Employee Ownership Foundation Fellowship (2023-2024 and 2025-2026) for my current research project investigating the impact of employee ownership on workplace productivity, employment stability, and workplace earnings inequality and other worker-level outcomes. In this work, I examine the largest to date establishment level data set on employee ownership and participatory management practices using confidential Census microdata.
Published Papers:
Examining the Effect of Wrongful Discharge Laws on Women's Occupational Employment
(Coauthored with Dr. Fidan Ana Kurtulus of University of Massachusetts, Amherst Department of Economics)
Previous empirical literature on US wrongful discharge laws, a judicial form of employment protection, has identified ways in which these policies have changed employers' hiring and firing practices, but has lacked a systematic analysis of the impact on workplace gender composition. This paper is the first to investigate the impact of state adoption of wrongful discharge laws on occupational gender diversity within American workplaces. We use restricted establishment-level longitudinal data that are uniquely suited for the analysis of this topic obtained from the United States. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEO-1 Employer Information Reports). We utilize difference-in-differences regression methodology to first estimate the overall impact of wrongful discharge laws, and then examine the dynamics of wrongful discharge law impacts using event study regressions. We then examine the interplay between state wrongful discharge laws and state gender employment discrimination laws in shaping female employment composition at workplaces. First, we find that the adoption of one wrongful discharge law in particular, the good faith doctrine, is associated with an increase in women's employment share in laborer jobs within private-sector establishments of 0.80 percentage points, and that this is a causal impact given the pattern of yearly impacts found using our event study analysis. Our findings suggest that the good faith doctrine has facilitated reduction in barriers women have historically faced in blue-collar jobs. Second, while we find that the good faith doctrine is associated with a statistically significant increase in the share of women in officer and managerial jobs, and that the public policy doctrine is associated with a significant rise in women's share of professional jobs, our event study results cast doubt that these are causal impacts. Finally, our exploration of the interaction between state wrongful discharge laws and state gender discrimination laws reveals that, generally, state gender discrimination laws neither amplify nor diminish the impact of wrongful discharge laws on women's occupational employment within establishments.
(Coauthored with Dr. Mary E. Davis of Tufts University Department of Urban and Environmental Policy & Planning; Published Open Access & Free to Circulate)
The objective of this study was to evaluate health outcomes for workers subject to piece rate historically to better understand the implications of pay type in the modern-day gig economy. While piece rate occurring in the 1980s and 1990s predates recent platform-based employment, it introduced and normalized patterns of economic precariousness that are instrumental in the current gig economy. Evidence suggests that such pay types may result in poor health outcomes; however, cross-sector evidence of its long-term effects on US workers is lacking. This article represents the first longitudinal cross-sector analysis relating health outcomes to this performance pay type in US workers.
References in Popular Media:
National Employment Law Project: "Strengthening Democracy and Racial Equity at Work: The Need for Just Cause Job Protections in the U.S.", by Irene Tung, Paul Sonn, and Jared Odessky, March 2021
The Conversation: “Skilled blue-collar jobs are growing—though women aren’t getting them”, by Eric Hoyt and J.D. Swerzenski, March 2019
Boston Globe: Keeping wages up helps the economy, by Richard Kazis, July 14, 2012
CEPR: Poor Sales, Not High Wages, Worry Small Businesses, by Eric Hoyt, July 10, 2012
CEPR: State-level Evidence that Unions Are Associated with Higher Economic Mobility, by Eric Hoyt and John Schmitt, June 5, 2012
CEPR: The Erskine Bowles Stock Index, by Dean Baker and Eric Hoyt, September 4, 2012
CEPR: Government Expenditure and Interest Rates, by Eric Hoyt, June 12, 2012