Date of Award
2026-05-01
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy
Department
Business Administration
Advisor(s)
Erik E. Devos
Second Advisor
Spencer S. Barnes
Abstract
This dissertation consists of three essays that examine the heterogeneous consequences of labor market regulation on corporate finance, using the staggered adoption (DiD) of state-level E-Verify mandates as a quasi-natural experiment. E-Verify mandates require employers to verify the work authorization of new hires through a federal electronic system, representing one of the most significant labor market regulations in the United States. Collectively, these three essays demonstrate that immigration enforcement policies that shrink the labor pool have different implications for corporate financial decision-making. The first essay investigates the effect of E-Verify mandates on corporate cash holdings. Employing a stacked difference-in-differences framework, I find that firms headquartered in states implementing E-Verify mandates experience a significant decline in cash holdings. This essay highlights a new channel through which immigration enforcement affects corporate liquidity policy. The second essay examines the impact of E-Verify mandates on executive compensation. Using the same identification strategy, I find that firms in adopting states experience a statistically and economically significant reduction in equity-based incentive compensation, driven primarily by reductions in both the value and number of stock options granted to CEOs. The third essay explores the effect of E-Verify mandates on firms' information environments, as measured by analyst coverage. I find that firms headquartered in adopting states experience a significant increase in analyst coverage of approximately 10.6%. The effect is concentrated among financially vulnerable firms and among firms with greater exposure to labor market disruptions. Together, these three essays contribute to the corporate finance literature by helping to understand the immigration restriction as a labor market regulation on firm liquidity policy, executive incentive design, and the information environment.
Language
en
Provenance
Received from ProQuest
Copyright Date
2026-05
File Size
120 p.
File Format
application/pdf
Rights Holder
Sebastian Jimenez
Recommended Citation
Jimenez, Sebastian, "Heterogeneous Consequences Of Labor Market Regulation: Essays On E-Verify And Corporate Finance" (2026). Open Access Theses & Dissertations. 4703.
https://scholarworks.utep.edu/open_etd/4703