The traditional theoretical and empirical “micro approach” to studying labor market power (or monopsony) requires that firms are small and atomistic. This is at odds with the reality of labor markets in which monopsony potentially matters most. Empirically, many markets are concentrated and characterized by large, dominant employers. The actions of large employers in an occupation or industry affect local and national wages, employment and output. Employers that understand their largeness may then act strategically when hiring and setting wages, generating misallocation and harming workers. This paper advocates for a “macro approach”: (1) directly model equilibrium behavior of large employers, (2) combine macro data and empirical estimates of employers’ responses to policy changes—obtained using the “micro approach”—to estimate the model, (3) use the model to compute the aggregate costs of monopsony, and optimal policies. This approach provides new perspectives on minimum wage and antitrust policy.

Until recently, antitrust laws were rarely enforced in labor markets. Although the existence of labor market power has long been recognized, evidence only recently emerged that such market power regularly arises from sources that are actionable under antitrust law. Since 2010, antitrust agencies have substantially increased labor market enforcement actions. However, many questions relevant to enforcement remain unanswered, such as how to conduct market definition for labor markets and how best to incorporate concentration into models of the labor market. This article reviews how antitrust is beginning to be used in labor markets, the evidence for and against its use, and the remaining evidence gaps standing in the way of more effective use.

Occupational licensing—the requirement that individuals attain a license to legally perform a specific job—is now necessary for over a fifth of the US workforce. The policy is intended to protect consumers by ensuring members of licensed occupations meet a minimum quality standard but comes at the cost of higher prices for their services. Economic theory and research support the argument that at least in some cases the costs of licensure exceed its benefits. Incumbent members of licensed occupations gain from the higher wages caused by licensure policies, creating a strong incentive for them to push for stricter regulations and resist any efforts to remove or loosen licensure requirements. However, despite bipartisan interest in licensure reform, data limitations and vast heterogeneity in licensure policies limit the usefulness of existing research in guiding its design.

This paper examines the rise of high-skill migration from Asia to the United States since 1990 and its consequences for sending and receiving economies. Over 1990–2019, migrants from India, China, South Korea, Japan, and the Philippines accounted for over one-third of US growth in software developers and a quarter of the increase in scientists, engineers, and physicians. Using census microdata, visa records, and administrative sources, I show how growing US demand for talent in information technology, higher education, and healthcare interacted with Asia’s demographic and educational transformations. Policy reforms in the H-1B, F-1, and J-1 programs and sectoral shifts—such as the internet revolution and aging-related healthcare demand—generated persistent needs for foreign students and workers. Asian economies were uniquely positioned to meet this demand through tertiary expansion, strong STEM institutions, English proficiency, and diaspora networks. These inflows boosted US innovation while fostering “brain gain” and “brain circulation” in Asia.

I assess the effect of continued sub-replacement fertility on age-adjusted consumption per capita. Channels assessed include transfers from working-age adults to children and the elderly, the effect of the labor force growth rate on required capital investment, sustainability of government debt, the interaction of population size with fixed natural resources (including a clean environment), and the effect of population size on the speed of technological progress. To isolate the effect of low fertility from other ongoing demographic changes, I use simulation models as well as projections from the United Nations and Social Security Administration that vary fertility rates while holding other factors constant. My main finding is that the impact of low fertility is likely to be negative but small. In addition, this negative impact arrives only after a long adjustment period. An increase in fertility back to the replacement rate would lower the standard of living for several decades.

Falling fertility and improved mortality create a powerful and inexorable demographic arithmetic of ageing in the coming decades around the world, with three patterns. The richest countries, along with China and the Former Soviet Union, will see absolute declines in the labor force aged (15-64) population and absolute rises in those 65 plus. All major developing country regions except for Africa: Latin America, South-East Asia and Pacific, South Asia, and West Asia/Middle East, will experience modest labor force growth to 2050 (less than 30 percent) aged combined with rapid growth of those over 65 (doubling or tripling). The fall in fertility in Africa (Sub-Saharan and North) started later and has fallen much less and hence, in standard scenarios for 2050, Africa will account for 80 percent of all global net growth in the world’s labor force aged. A fundamental feature of the global economy over the medium-run to 2050 is that that highest labor productivity countries will have absolutely fewer native-born workers and Africa, home to many of the world’s lowest productivity countries, will have 800 million more labor force aged. The combination makes possible gains on the order of trillions of dollars to policies that creating legal pathways to allow people, particularly youth, to move from low productivity, labor abundance places to high productivity, labor scarcity places. But, so far, politics has not found the way to “yes” for this win-win scenario.

For the world as a whole, average birth rates have been falling for decades—from about 5 in 1950 to a little above 2 today. Two-thirds of people today live in a country where the birth rate is below an average of two children per two adults, which means below the fertility level needed to sustain population sizes (without net migration). In this paper, we assess whether low fertility is likely to persist as a global phenomenon. We distinguish cohort birth rates, which matter for generation-to-generation population change, from period birth rates, which present a snapshot of birth rates at a point in time, but may offer less insight on longer-run possibilities. Where cohort birth rates have fallen low, they have not subsequently rebounded. We show that both increasing rates of lifetime childlessness and smaller family sizes among parents have contributed to falling cohort birth rates. Pronatal policies, we discuss, can have large effects on the annual fertility data without substantially changing the average number of children women have over their lifetimes. Although future birth rates remain uncertain, we conclude from the evidence that, over a long horizon, persistent low fertility is a likely future.

Asian Americans are the fastest-growing immigrant group in the United States, yet Asian immigration remains relatively understudied in quantitative social science. This paper reviews the historical evolution of Asian immigration, focusing on six major origin countries—China, Japan, India, the Philippines, Korea, and Vietnam—to show how US immigration and foreign policy shaped the size and composition of immigrant arrivals. It then examines subsequent patterns of demographic composition, geographic settlement, and socioeconomic characteristics. Taken together, the evidence highlights the enduring influence of US policy regimes on Asian immigration over time.