Essays on firms and workers
department or school: Arts, Faculty of
department or school: Vancouver School of Economics
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCV
creator: Tavakoli, Amirhossein
issued: 2025-10-22T23:33:33Z
issued: 2025
related degree: Doctor of Philosophy - PhD
degree grantor: University of British Columbia
description: Chapter 2 examines the incidence of R&D tax credits on workersâ wages and the underlying mechanisms. Leveraging a regression kink design with matched employerâemployee tax records, I show that R&D tax credits substantially increase firmsâ R&D expenditures. Responses are concentrated among R&D-intensive firms, where higher spending leads to gains in profitability, productivity, and wages. These benefits accrue primarily to incumbent workers, with high-skill, long-tenured, and older employees experiencing the largest earnings increases: a 10 percent rise in expenditure limit raises their annual wages by 1.2â1.9 percent. In contrast, entrants and less-skilled, younger, or short-tenured workers experience no significant wage effects. The results are consistent with a rent-sharing framework and highlight the role of R&D policy in shaping within-firm wage inequality. Chapter 3 connects changes in employer characteristics through job transitions to employee earnings following mergers and acquisitions (M&As). Using firm balance sheet data linked to individual earnings data in Canada and a matched difference-in-differences design, we find that workers at target firms experience a post-M&A earnings decline, driven largely by those who leave. Although movers transition to larger and more profitable firms, they face wage losses, likely reflecting the erosion of firm-specific human capital or backloaded contracts. The evidence suggests that the loss of match-specific premiums is the primary mechanism behind post-M&A wage declines. Chapter 4 examines the impact of corporate M&As on firm profitability and markups. Using financial data (2010 - 2018) for 10 European countries and a matched difference-in-differences design, we find that acquirersâ and targetsâ markups remain unchanged, while their profitability declines substantially. Heterogeneity analyses across sectors and deal types confirm that these patterns are inconsistent with a market power channel. Instead, the evidence in…
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/92713
note: Essays on Firms and WorkersbyAmirhossein TavakoliB.S. Sharif University of Technology, 2016M.S. Sharif University of Technology, 2018A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENTOF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OFDoctor of PhilosophyinTHE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORALSTUDIES(Economics)The University of British Columbia(Vancouver)October 2025c© Amirhossein Tavakoli, 2025The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Fac-ulty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, the dissertation entitled:Essays on Firms and Workerssubmitted by Amirhossein Tavakoli in partial fulfillment of the requirements forthe degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Economics.Examining Committee:Terry S. Moon, Assistant Professor, Economics, UBCCo-SupervisorKevin Milligan, Professor, Economics, UBCCo-SupervisorThomas Lemieux, Professor, Economics, UBCSupervisory Committee MemberPaul Schrimpf, Associate Professor, Economics, UBCUniversity ExaminerJan Bena, Professor, Sauder Business School, UBCUniversity ExamineriiAbstractChapter 2 examines the incidence of R&D tax credits on workers wages and theunderlying mechanisms. Leveraging a regression kink design with matched em-ployeremployee tax records, I show that R&D tax credits substantially increasefirms R&D expenditures. Responses are concentrated among R&D-intensive firms,where higher spending leads to gains in profitability, productivity, and wages.These benefits accrue primarily to incumbent workers, with high-skill, long-tenured,and older employees experiencing the largest earnings increases: a 10 percent risein expenditure limit raises their annual wages by 1.21.9 percent. In contrast, en-trants and less-skilled, younger, or short-tenured workers experience no significantwage effects. The results are consistent with a rent-sharing framework and high-light the role of R&D policy in shaping within-firm wage inequality.Chapter 3 connects changes in employer characteristics through job transitionsto…
has type: Thesis/Dissertation
date issued: 2026-05
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0450536
language: eng
degree discipline: Economics
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: University of British Columbia
rights: Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/
scholar level: Graduate
contributor: Moon, Terry S.
contributor: Milligan, Kevin
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/92713