Chris Seaman’s Yale Law Journal Research Cited in OECD Employment Outlook 2026 International policy report draws on Seaman's scholarship examining how confidentiality agreements can restrict worker mobility.

By Law Communications
July 15, 2026

Washington and Lee law professor Chris Seaman’s scholarship has been cited in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) Employment Outlook 2026, the organization’s flagship annual report on labor market trends and employment policy.

The report’s chapter, “Non-compete and Related Agreements: Hoarding Talent, Holding Back Growth?,” examines the growing use of contractual restrictions that limit employee mobility and their implications for wages, innovation and economic growth. The chapter draws on employer and employee survey data from 15 OECD countries, providing what the authors describe as the first large-scale cross-country evidence on the prevalence and effects of non-compete and related agreements.

The chapter cites Seaman’s 2024 Yale Law Journal article, “Beyond Trade Secrecy: Confidentiality Agreements That Act Like Noncompetes,” co-authored with Camilla Hrdy. The article argues that confidentiality agreements can function much like traditional non-compete agreements by discouraging employees from changing jobs or using valuable skills and knowledge in new positions, even when those agreements are ostensibly designed only to protect trade secrets.

Seaman’s research and teaching interests include intellectual property, property, and civil procedure, with a particular focus on intellectual property litigation and remedies for the violation of intellectual property rights. His empirical study of willful patent infringement and enhanced damages was selected as a winner of the Samsung-Stanford Patent Prize competition for outstanding new scholarship related to patent remedies,

Published annually, the OECD Employment Outlook is among the world’s leading reports on labor market policy. Produced by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, whose 38 member countries represent many of the world’s largest economies, the report provides evidence-based research that informs policymakers around the world.

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