Employment-at-will: An empirical analysis

State courts differ on the employment-at-will doctrine. Most allow maximum employer discretion in employee dismissals, but a few have added significant protections against arbitrary termination of employment. Our hypothesis, tested via a probit model, is that this variation among states can be explained by a combination of statewide economic and demographic characteristics. The model correctly predicts the employment-at-will position of 47 of 50 states.