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Employment Sector Employment Working Paper No.
Regional Trade Agreements and domestic labour market regulation
Christian Häberli Marion Jansen José-Antonio Monteiro
Trade and Employment Programme
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ILO Cataloguing in Publication Data Häberli, Christian; Jansen, Marion; Monteiro, José Antonio Regional trade agreements and domestic labour market regulation / Christian Häberli, Marion Jansen, JoséAntonio Monteiro ; International Labour Office, Employment Sector, Trade and Employment Programme. Geneva: ILO, 2012 1 v. (Employment working paper) ; No.120)
International Labour Office; Employment Sector labour market / labour policy / trade agreement / role of ILO / role of WTO / Asia / EU countries / Pacific / USA
The designations employed in ILO publications, which are in conformity with United Nations practice, and the presentation of material therein do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the International Labour Office concerning the legal status of any country, area or territory or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers. The responsibility for opinions expressed in signed articles, studies and other contributions rests solely with their authors, and publication does not constitute an endorsement by the International Labour Office of the opinions expressed in them. Reference to names of firms and commercial products and processes does not imply their endorsement by the International Labour Office, and any failure to mention a particular firm, commercial product or process is not a sign of disapproval. ILO publications and electronic products can be obtained through major booksellers or ILO local offices in many countries, or direct from ILO Publications, International Labour Office, CH-1211 Geneva 22, Switzerland. Catalogues or lists of new publications are available free of charge from the above address, or by email: pubvente@ilo.org. Visit our website: www.ilo.org/publns.
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The primary goal of the ILO is to contribute, with member States, to achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all, including women and young people, a goal embedded in the ILO Declaration 2008 on Social Justice for a Fair Globalization1, and which has now been widely adopted by the international community. In order to support member States and the social partners to reach the goal, the ILO pursues a Decent Work Agenda which comprises four interrelated areas: Respect for fundamental worker’s rights and international labour standards, employment promotion, social protection and social dialogue. Explanations of this integrated approach and related challenges are contained in a number of key documents: in those explaining and elaborating the concept of decent work2, in the Employment Policy Convention, 1964 (No. 122), and in the Global Employment Agenda. The Global Employment Agenda was developed by the ILO through tripartite consensus of its Governing Body’s Employment and Social Policy Committee. Since its adoption in 2003 it has been further articulated and made more operational and today it constitutes the basic framework through which the ILO pursues the objective of placing employment at the centre of economic and social policies3. The Employment Sector is fully engaged in the implementation of the Global Employment Agenda, and is doing so through a large range of technical support and capacity building activities, advisory services and policy research. As part of its research and publications programme, the Employment Sector promotes knowledge-generation around key policy issues and topics conforming to the core elements of the Global Employment Agenda and the Decent Work Agenda. The Sector’s publications consist of books, monographs, working papers, employment reports and policy briefs4. The Employment Working Papers series is designed to disseminate the main findings of research initiatives undertaken by the various departments and programmes of the Sector. The working papers are intended to encourage exchange of ideas and to stimulate debate. The views expressed are the responsibility of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the ILO.
José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs Executive Director Employment Sector
See http://www.ilo.org/public/english/bureau/dgo/download/dg_announce_en.pdf See the successive Reports of the Director-General to the International Labour Conference: Decent work (1999); Reducing the decent work deficit: A global challenge (2001); Working out of poverty (2003). 3 See http://www.ilo.org/gea. And in particular: Implementing the Global Employment Agenda: Employment strategies in support of decent work, “Vision” document, ILO, 2006. 4 See http://www.ilo.org/employment.
.......................... 1 References to labour provisions in RTAs ..................... 35 Dispute settlement procedures . 37 6........................................................................................................................................ 3 United States ....................1......................................... v Abstract ....... iii Contents ............................................ 24 Econometric Methodology........................................................................................................................................ 24 5. Institutional framework: Do references to labour standards in RTAs influence domestic regulation?........................................................................................................................................... 4.......................................................................................................................................................................................... 3 Generalities ........................................................ 18 4........................................................................................................................................................................... 5 European Union ......................... 20 4.............. Conclusions .......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... ix 1...................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 20 Estimation Procedure ......................................................... 2............ Trade and labour market regulation: Existing empirical evidence .......................................... 13 Intermediate conclusion: three approaches to labour references ................................. 36 Sanctions: Preference withdrawals and fines ..........................................................vii Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................................................2........................................................... 41 Literature .......... Regional Trade and the level of labour and social protection ................... 32 Public participation ................................................................................... Introduction .................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 39 Appendices ............................... 16 Do labour standards affect trade flows? ...................... 24 Estimation results ................................................... 15 3............ 8 Asia and Pacific ......................................................................................................................................................................................... Data Description .................................................................... 16 Does trade threaten or encourage the implementation of core labour standards? .............Contents Preface.......................... 60 v ..........................
We examine empirically whether regional trade liberalisation is associated with deterioration (“race to the bottom”) of domestic labour standards beyond those reflected in the 1998 ILO Declaration on the Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. WTO vii . Our analysis. labour standards applying to employment protection and unemployment benefits are significantly weakened. The above-mentioned empirical findings indicate that such provisions could potentially become relevant. Using a panel of 90 developed and developing countries. regional trade agreements. from a legal point of view. labour market. and that this is more likely to be the case for high income members of RTAs. We show that such a lowering of protection levels tends to occur in high income countries and that this effect mainly stems from RTAs among such countries rather than with low or middle income countries. regulation. we find that after the entry into force of a regional trade agreement (RTA).Abstract In this paper we discuss the relationship between labour market regulation and regional trade agreements from both a legal and an economic angle. covering the years from 1980 to 2005. Concern about competitive pressure to weaken domestic labour regulation is reflected in a variety of undertakings in RTAs not to administer labour laws with a view to improving one’s competitive position in trade or foreign direct investment (FDI). of relevant institutional and procedural mechanisms indicates however that enforceability of the relevant provisions is weak for most of the existing legal texts. Keywords: International trade. labour standards. ILO.
All opinions and errors are those of the authors. Petros Mavroidis. This paper has been developed as an input to the International Collaborative Initiative on Trade and Employment (ICITE). Franz Ebert.17 February 2011) for their comments. Switzerland. based at the University of Bern’s World Trade Institute in Bern. We are grateful to Erik von Uexkuell for his support in designing this project and to Afshan Dar and Valeria Groppo for excellent research assistance.Acknowledgements We thank Froukje Boelen. Roberta Piermartini. Publication does not constitute an endorsement by the ILO. Research for this paper was partly funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation under a grant to the National Centre of Competence in Research on Trade Regulation. ix . The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the partner organisations of the ICITE Initiative. 16 . Sandrine Cazes. An earlier version of this paper appeared under the title “References to Domestic Labour Market Regulation in Regional Trade Agreements” as NCCR Working Paper No. 2010/35. Robert Stern and participants in the ILO Research Conference on ‘Key Lessons from the crisis and the Way Forward’ (Geneva.
Increasing economic integration among countries has contributed to raising concerns about a ‘race to the bottom’ in labour standards, i.e. a vicious circle of ever lower labour standards in order to remain competitive in global markets. Indeed, to the extent that labour standards increase production costs they will have repercussions on relative prices and thus possibly trade flows. Accordingly, when border protection is reduced, governments may feel tempted to boost the competitive position of domestic producers by reducing the cost of regulation born by their enterprises even if this implies a lowering of the levels of protection that regulation is meant to provide to workers. In the absence of internationally agreed rules on domestic regulation, races to the bottom could arise, just like tariff or subsidy wars could arise in the absence of relevant multilateral rules on trade policies (Copeland, 1990; Bagwell and Staiger, 2002). The concern that openness may compel individual governments not to raise or even to lower labour standards has led to calls for tying labour provisions to trade arrangements between countries. According to the ILO (2009), labour provisions in trade agreements have substantially increased in prevalence over the past 25 years. Many of these labour provisions make reference to internationally recognized core labour standards. In particular, explicit reference is often made to the 1998 ILO Declaration on the Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, with stipulations requiring the improvement of freedom of association and collective bargaining rights, the abolition of forced and child labour, and non-discrimination1. ILO (2009) also indicates that in recent years, preferential trade agreements increasingly contain provisions making reference to domestic labour regulation. In this paper we take a deeper look at the latter type of provisions and analyse them in detail. We pay particular attention to provisions implying commitments to prevent undercutting of domestic labour standards below levels prevalent upon entering the trade agreement and those reflecting commitments to strive to improve upon prevalent standards2. Such provisions have the characteristic to take as a reference point the level of protection provided by domestic labour standards at the time of signing the trade agreement. They discipline deviations that lower those protection levels and encourage deviations in the direction of increasing protection levels. Those provisions therefore do not explicitly encourage harmonization of standards and existing differences in protection that reflect cross-country differences in productivity or income levels can be maintained3. The discussion in this paper focuses on relevant provisions in RTAs concluded by the United States, by the European Union and those concluded in the Asian-Pacific region. It turns out that different players appear to have different preferences as to which type of provisions they refer to in their RTAs. Provisions referring to labour standards are most frequent in RTAs involving the United States and the European Union, and they tend to be introduced on the behest of their parliaments4. Labour movements and other stakeholders in the U.S. and the E.U. often demand the inclusion of references to labour standards in RTAs. It is our assumption
The term “core labour standards” often used in the relevant economic literature typically refers to the principles and rights stipulated in the 1998 ILO Declaration. 2 Although those provisions do not explicitly refer to ILO Conventions, the question nevertheless arises how the obligations of Parties to the relevant trade agreements relate to the obligations the same States have as a member of the ILO and as party to possibly relevant ILO Conventions. This question is not further examined in this paper. For a discussion regarding the coherence of trade-related labour provisions with ILO standards see Gravel, Kohiyama and Tsotroudi (2011). 3 See Brown, Deardorf and Stern (2011) for a discussion of cross-country heterogeneity of standards for economic efficiency. 4 See Elliott (2011) and Bourgeois, Dawar and Evenett (2007).
that one of the objectives behind such requests is to protect overall domestic labour market conditions. Such RTAs usually include a commitment to adhere to the ILO Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, and in addition commit the parties to prevent the undercutting of domestic labour standards, or to improve upon prevailing domestic standards5. It is therefore our interpretation that, for the E.U. and for the U.S., provisions preventing a lowering or encouraging an improvement of existing standards aim at labour market conditions going beyond international “core” labour standards as reflected in the Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. In our empirical work we examine whether “race to the bottom” concerns are justified by examining whether regional trade liberalisation has gone hand in hand with a weakening of labour market regulation other than that based on core labour standards. Our analysis therefore fills a gap in the by now relatively large empirical literature on the relationship between labour standards and trade that has tended to focus on core labour standards. In this paper, we use a recent dataset from the Fondazione Rodolfo Debenedetti (FRDB) that contains data on employment protection legislation (EPL) and unemployment benefits (UB) for the period 1980 to 2005. Both types of measures represent labour regulations that impact the working conditions and possibly production costs in a country. Particularly in a context of trade among developed countries, these variables are likely to be more pertinent for determining comparative advantage than core labour standards, as developed countries tend to take similar approaches to implementing the latter. We use panel regression techniques to examine whether increased trade within RTAs is associated with lower labour standards, in the sense of lower employment protection legislation or lower unemployment benefits. We include the usual control variables in our regression and also examine whether the effect of trade within RTAs differs across countries of different income levels. Our analysis has a number of limitations. It suffers from the endogeneity problem that is typical for this type of empirical work, but we try to address this with standard techniques. Our data do not allow us to analyse whether inclusion of labour provisions in RTAs has an impact on the relationship between trade and labour standards. This is the case, because most relevant RTAs have been concluded too recently. Last but not least, labour provisions in private sector initiatives, such as codes of labour practice of multinational companies, are also not at all covered in this paper. The paper is organised as follows. Section 2 provides an overview of the type of labour provisions currently found in Regional Trade Agreements. Particular emphasis is given in this discussion to labour provisions referring to domestic (rather than international) labour market regulation. Section 3 provides an overview of the existing economic literature on international and domestic labour standards and trade. This overview reveals that few contributions have explicitly examined whether trade within RTAs leads to weaker domestic labour market regulation. In section 4, we present evidence on the evolution of trade within RTAs in the past decades and the evolution of employment protection legislation and unemployment benefits across countries and over time. We then present findings of a dynamic panel analysis estimating the impact of trade within RTAs on these two types of labour variables. We find that increased regional trade has indeed gone hand in hand with a weakening of domestic labour market regulation, albeit only in our sample of industrialized countries. Section 5 discusses whether current provisions in RTAs have the potential to be effective to avoid the observed weakening of labour standards. Section 6 concludes.
All E.U. Member States have ratified the conventions referred to in ILO Fundamental Principles and Rights at work. Although it has only ratified two of the eight conventions of the ILO Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, the U.S. tends to apply domestic laws that are equivalent to the relevant conventions, albeit with some differences with regard to freedom of association. Both the EU and the US therefore appear to be substantially committed to the Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work that reflect core labour standards.
References to labour provisions in RTAs
This section describes and analyses the legal provisions referring to labour standards in trade agreements. While references to ILO’s fundamental principles and rights at work have been well-researched and discussed elsewhere (Doumbia-Henry and Gravel, 2006), our study focuses on references to domestic labour market regulation and their impact. We start our examination with three general comments before analysing in more detail examples from RTAs of major trading nations. The section concludes with a general typology on which we will then base our econometric study. Different institutional and procedural mechanisms foreseen for implementation purposes, including dispute settlement provisions and the thorny issue of sanctions in case of infringements and noncompliance will be discussed in Section 5.
First, references to labour standards can be found in at least three types of international economic law instruments, namely in various types of trade agreements, in unilateral trade preference schemes under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP), and in bilateral investment protection treaties (BIT). Our study focuses on labour provisions contained in RTAs (including bilateral agreements) notified to the WTO under GATT-Article XXIV. We note, however, that some of the more recent agreements are of a comprehensive nature and go far beyond trade in goods. Among others, the US – Peru agreement which entered into force on 1 January 2009 also covers trade in services including the movement of natural persons, government procurement, environment, competition policy and investment. As will be seen in Section 5, the institutional arrangements and the various dispute settlement mechanisms in this agreement, including Arbitral Panels and Private Commercial Dispute Settlement, extend to most of these subjects. Our legal analysis of the normative value of labour provisions in RTAs thus automatically extends to some of these areas as well. Secondly, in 2009, the ILO reported that ‘labour provisions adopted in trade arrangements have multiplied over the past 25 years’6. This study also estimated that 37 out of 186 bilateral and regional trade agreements in force and notified to the WTO contained labour provisions7, and underlined that this represented a considerable increase from only 4 such agreements in 1995. According to the same ILO report, 60% of these provisions made specific references to ILO Conventions or to the ILO 1998 Declaration. Also, 46% were found to be ‘conditional’ (foreseeing sanctions or positive incentives), while 54% were ‘promotional’ (involving monitoring and capacity building). Moreover, the most widespread type of reference was ‘the requirement not to lower the level of protection of their national labour law in order to encourage trade and investment8. Using a different approach for identifying labour provisions, the WTO Secretariat arrives at a number of 17 out of 202 in force in 2011, with only 10 having developing countries as treaty partners. With one exception all of these 17 agreements entered into force in the 21st century. This makes any empirical impact assessment difficult, and it may also help to explain the almost total absence of case law9. It is worthwhile pointing out,
ILO (2009), p. 63. The WTO Secretariat lists trade-related agreements notified by its Members and in force. The database is available at http://rtais.wto.org/ui/PublicMaintainRTAHome.aspx (accessed 28 April 2011). It should be pointed out that a comparison between ILO and WTO databases is subject to limitations since, in the latter, labour provisions are only counted if they have been mentioned explicitly under the WTO transparency mechanism. As a result, numerous FTA labour provisions – even the most well-known ones, such as those in Northern American FTAs – are not covered by this approach. 8 ILO (2009), p. 71. 9 Under NAFTA/NAALC, though, more than 35 cases have been filed so far.
101 ‘The Parties recognise that it is inappropriate to encourage investment activities by relaxing domestic health. each Party should not waive or otherwise derogate from such measures and standards as an encouragement for establishment. they underline the primacy of domestic regulation. the practice is far from being universal. showing that there is no clear pattern. See Horn. Chile and New Zealand in the shaping of labour provisions in Regional Trade Agreements. Norway and Iceland which might have been more pro-active in this field have concluded most of their RTAs together with Switzerland and in the framework of the European Free Trade Agreement (EFTA). let alone enforcement mechanisms. 11 The EFTA-Hong Kong FTA which was signed in June 2011 contains (promotional) labour provisions in a separate side agreement. There are very few references to labour provisions. These countries rarely include references to labour standards in their RTAs. To this effect. let alone a multilateral framework guiding the interface between labour standards and trade agreements.04. Our third general remark concerns the many different approaches to labour provisions in trade agreements. Mavroidis and Sapir (2010) for a similar view. even among developed countries. Bartels (2009) noted that Australia rejects such a linkage as a matter of principle. Though the United States and the European Union regularly include such references into their new agreements. The entry into force of this agreement was pending at the time of writing this paper.’ (emphasis added)13 RTAs among developing countries tend to place social policies in a development context. that the RTAs concluded by the United States and the European Union are one of the main drivers behind the observed increased frequency of labour provisions in RTAs10. Where there are references to labour provisions. This may explain why no EFTA RTA contains specific commitments on labour standards11. acquisition or expansion of investments in its Area. Bartels (2009) provides an overview of the RTAs in force. See at: http://www. Dawar (2008) underlines that. the recent Japan – Switzerland agreement (2009) has a relatively stringent formulation in this respect12: Art. sometimes by way of a fleeting reference to ILO core labour standards. In the absence of any concerted drive. Other industrialised countries – except perhaps New Zealand – are more reluctant.also.2012) 10 4 .int/free-trade/free-trade-agreements/hong-kong/labour-agreement. Ebert and Posthuma (2011) also emphasize the role of Canada. it has only in its FTAs with the USA (2005) and later with Chile (2009) accepted to insert a reference to labour standards. The EFTA-Hong Kong FTA which has been concluded but not yet entered into force has (promotional) labour provisions attached to it in a separate side agreement. 12 A similar provision is contained in the Japan-Philippines FTA. On the other side and rather as an exception for FTAs among industrialised countries. this is not done in a consistent way. Japan and Switzerland seem to have similar views on the matter. but no mutually binding commitments.aspx (accessed 02. safety or environmental measures or lowering labour standards.efta. 13 A very similar provision is contained in the Japan-Philippines FTA. this variety of situations is hardly surprising.
In the multilateral trading system. bilaterally and at the regional and multilateral level. 2004). 5 . The biggest effort was made in the context of various US trade preference schemes. i. the US Government has included labour in its trade negotiating agenda since at least 197414. ten US agreements were notified to WTO and in force.e. Improvements in labour protection by other countries were sought unilaterally.United States Basically on the insistence of Congress as the ratifying authority for all trade agreements. in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA 1994). By April 2011. Since then the United States has incorporated different labour provisions in all of its RTAs. it is in the first RTA to which the US became a party that substantial labour provisions were introduced for the first time in a side agreement. for instance for Ecuador (Elliot. all attempts made by the US and other developed countries have so far remained unsuccessful. At the regional level. 14 See Elliott (2011) for a more extensive discussion. The following table summarises the types of references to labour standards contained in the other nine agreements. however.
Main agreement: Similar provisions and institutional arrangements as for US – Oman (Chapter 17 and Annex 17A).2).5).17. Main agreement: Similar provisions as for US – Jordan (e.18. including through a ‘Labor Cooperation Mechanism’ (Annex to Art.2).2). North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) US . or offer to waive or otherwise derogate from. Main agreement: Each Party shall ‘strive to ensure’ compliance with the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work and its Follow-up (1998) (Article 16.2).Chile FTA&EIA 01-Jan-2004 US .Singapore FTA&EIA 01-Jan-2004 Source: WTO RTA Database (http://rtais. Joint Committee to consider ‘opportunities to improve labor standards’ (Art.Oman FTA&EIA 01-Jan-2009 US . its statutes or regulations […] in a manner affecting trade or investment between the Parties. The promotion of labour standards is laid down in a ‘Labor Cooperation Mechanism’ while implementation is regulated in an Annex. and a ‘Labor Cooperation and Capacity Building Mechanism’ is to ensure compliance with ILO Convention 182 (Art. The US – Israel FTA which was signed and entered into force back in 1985 – as the first FTA entered into by the United States – contains no specific labour provisions in either the main text or in an annex. where the waiver or derogation would be inconsistent with a fundamental right set out in that paragraph.Table 1.18.Morocco FTA&EIA 01-Jan-2006 US . including through a Labor Cooperation Mechanism (Annex 16-A). RTA Parties Labour Provisions in RTAs to which the United States is a party15 Type of agreement16 FTA&EIA Date of entry into force 01-Jan-1994 Place and types of labour provisions Side agreement: Ensure high levels of labour standards and strive for a continuous improvement of domestic standards (further described below). Art. in a manner affecting trade between the Parties.6. A ‘Labor Affairs Council’ (Art.wto. Content description by the authors. Main agreement: ‘each Party shall strive to ensure that it does not waive or otherwise derogate from. especially to prevent child labor (compliance with ILO Convention 182). Art.6).17. Main agreement: ‘Neither Party shall waive or otherwise derogate from.Jordan FTA&EIA 17-Dec-2001 US .15. including through ‘Labor Cooperation’.7).5) is to ‘oversee the implementation’.2.Peru FTA&EIA 01-Feb-2009 US .g.g.’ (Art.aspx accessed 19 April 2011).6. Economic Integration Agreements (EIA) and "Partial Scope" Agreements (PS).2). 15 6 . Customs Unions (CU).g.18. or offer to waive or otherwise derogate from. 16 The database which is regularly updated and available on-line contains four types of agreements: Free Trade Agreements (FTA).17. Main agreement: Similar provisions as for US – Australia (e.Bahrain FTA&EIA 01-Aug-2006 US .’ (Art.org/UI/PublicAllRTAList.16.1) Main agreement: Similar provisions as for US – Australia (e. Main agreement: ‘A Party shall not fail to effectively enforce its labour laws. Art.Australia FTA&EIA 01-Jan-2005 US .5). through a sustained or recurring course of action or inaction. such [labor] laws as an encouragement for trade with the other Party’ (Art.
with the qualifying verb ‘strive to’. One reason for the delay in ratification was the need felt by Congress to Of these three agreements only the US – Korea treaty (KORUS) was in force at the time of writing this article. or offer to waive or otherwise derogate from.pdf. 17 7 . Article 17.ustr. However. prosecutorial.’ The NAALC does not define how ‘high’ these standards have to be.7 as an encouragement for trade with the other Party. Regarding the levels of protection.’ The most elaborate labour provisions in any of these agreements remain those in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). each Party shall strive to ensure that it does not waive or otherwise derogate from.gov/sites/default/files/uploads/agreements/fta/colombia/asset_upload_file993_10146. KORUS: http://www. acquisition. which had been signed back in 2006 and 2007 but ratified by the US Congress only in October 201117. and shall continue to strive to improve those standards in that light.ustr.2. Social matters are linked to the trade provisions through a side agreement called the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC). all the signatories have to do is to ‘continue to strive to improve’ their own standards.’ The treaty text acknowledges that social protection can be relevant for trade and for investment decisions. the Parties understand that a Party is in compliance with subparagraph (a) where a course of action or inaction reflects a reasonable exercise of such discretion. Accordingly.This table shows that the labour provisions in US agreements are often a mixture of duties (‘prevent child labor’) and of commitments to avoid a ‘race to the bottom’ (‘enforce labour laws in a manner affecting trade’). and compliance matters and to make decisions regarding the allocation of resources to enforcement with respect to other labor matters determined to have higher priorities. A significant provision found in several RTAs is an explicit recognition that the administration of labour standards implies a considerable degree of discretion which by itself cannot be viewed as having a tradedistorting effect. For the texts cf. regulatory. Article 2 provides that all three trading partners shall ensure high levels of labour standards: Affirming full respect for each Party's constitution. consistent with high quality and productivity workplaces.gov/sites/default/files/uploads/agreements/fta/korus/asset_upload_file934_12718. At the domestic level.’ (emphasis added) Recent developments concern the three FTAs with Colombia. or as an encouragement for the establishment.2. For example. and to adopt or modify accordingly its labor laws and regulations. 17. and Panama.2) The Parties recognize that it is inappropriate to encourage trade or investment by weakening or reducing the protections afforded in domestic labor laws. each Party shall ensure that its labor laws and regulations provide for high labor standards.pdf. such laws in a manner that weakens or reduces adherence to the internationally recognized labor rights referred to in Article 17. US – Colombia: http://www. expansion. and recognizing the right of each Party to establish its own domestic labor standards.1(b) of the US – Singapore FTA foresees that ‘each Party retains the right to exercise discretion with respect to investigatory. Korea. nor does it prescribe any particular type of improvements. or retention of an investment in its territory. or results from a bona fide decision regarding the allocation of resources. A feature also found in some of the more recent US treaties with developing countries are various active cooperation mechanisms implemented through labour councils mandated to seek ‘opportunities to improve labor standards. the admonition not to weaken domestic legislation or to diminish adherence to international standards stops short of clearly committing the parties not to lower their own standards: (Art. Most RTAs explicitly reserve the right of the Parties to establish their own labour standards and – except for references to ILO – exclude common standards applicable to each signatory’s domestic labour legislation. Accordingly.
Panama http://www.5. Also after signature. US .7.7. entailing where necessary. and impunity from prosecution18.6. including regional trade agreements. The standard formulations and institutional arrangements in these three FTAs resemble the earlier agreements listed above. 2007 confirms ‘for greater certainty’ that neither party will be obliged to ‘to establish new procedures that duplicate existing channels for reviewing such communications. and legal system’21.7 (for Panama).’ 21 For Colombia.2(c) and Annex 16. See ‘USTR Seeks To Clarify Colombian Commitments Under Labor Action Plan’ in World Trade Online posted 28 April 2011. including ‘Labor Affairs Councils’.19.gov/trade-agreements/free-trade-agreements/panama-tpa/final-text.3 in the US-Korea draft FTA.7 (for Colombia) and Art. 17.ustr. financial and technical assistance’.2012 18 An example mentioned apparently concerned the use in Colombia of cooperatives to avoid a direct employment relationship and thereby circumvent workers' rights to bargain collectively. culture. 16. The same agreements prescribe a cooperative consultative mechanism before a labour-related dispute could be taken up under the formal dispute settlement mechanism22. 361-63. a ‘Labor Cooperation and Capacity Building Mechanism’ is foreseen which will ‘take into account each Party’s economy. see Art. In the agreements with Colombia and Panama. an exchange of letters between the Korean and United States chief negotiators dated June 30.04.16.ustr. 23 Bartels (2009). pp. 22 See Art.2(c). At the same time they confirm the right of each party to maintain its own procedures and confidentiality provisions20.17. For Panama. 19 On 30 March 2011 Deputy United States Trade Representative Miriam Sapiro announced that Panama’s National Assembly was about to ‘ensure labor rights are respected in export processing zones and to eliminate restrictions on collective bargaining in companies less than two years old. all three texts accessed 02.gov/aboutus/press-office/speeches/transcripts/2011/march/statement-deputy-us-trade-representative-miri-0 accessed 29 April 2011) 20 In respect of labour-related ‘communications from persons of a Party’ based on Art. They refer specifically to the abolition of child labour. Such labour standards may be part of ‘social chapters’ containing mandatory promotion and protection of general human rights23.6. The recent three agreements reaffirm the parties’ obligations as members of the International Labour Organization (ILO). The procedures for this mechanism are laid down in Annex 17. see Art.further negotiate labour provisions as originally foreseen in the legal texts. One example was the modalities laid down in the ‘Labor Action Plan’ with Colombia on the right to collective bargaining. an example concerning Panama arose because of new concerns such as a lack of workers’ protection in export processing zones19. 8 . the prevention of violence against labor leaders.6. European Union In 1995 the European Union started to systematically include labour clauses in all future international trade agreements.’ (See http://www. ‘by way of cooperation.6.
Jordan EC .Turkey Source: WTO RTA Database (http://rtais.Andorra Labour Provision in RTA’s to which the EC is a party Type of agreement FTA & EIA FTA CU FTA FTA FTA & EIA FTA & EIA FTA FTA & EIA FTA FTA FTA & EIA FTA FTA FTA FTA FTA & EIA FTA & EIA FTA FTA FTA FTA FTA FTA FTA FTA CU Date of entry into force 01-Dec-2006 (Goods) 01-Apr-2009 (Services) 01-Sep-2005 01-Jul-1991 01-Jul-2008 01-Oct-2009 01-Nov-2008 01-Feb-2003 (G) 01-Mar-2005 (S) 01-Jan-2009 01-Mar-2002 (G) 01-Feb-2005 (S) 01-Jun-2004 01-Jan-1997 01-Jun-2001 (G) 01-Apr-2004 (S) 01-Apr-1973 01-Jun-2000 01-May-2002 01-Mar-2003 01-Jul-2000 (G) 01-Oct-2000 (S) 01-Jan-2008 (G) 01-May-2010 (S) 01-Mar-2000 01-Jul-1973 01-Jan-1971 01-Jul-1997 01-Jan-2000 01-Jan-1973 01-Jul-1977 01-Mar-1998 01-Jan-1996 EC .Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia EC .Switzerland .Tunisia EC .Montenegro EC .Côte d'Ivoire EC .Iceland EC .Algeria EC .Syria EC .Israel EC .Chile EC .Albania EC .Table 2.Cameroon EC .Overseas Countries and Territories (OCT) EC .Faroe Islands EC .Croatia EC . RTA Parties EC .aspx accessed 29 April 2011) 9 .CARIFORUM States EPA EC .Mexico EC .wto.South Africa EC .Norway EC .org/UI/PublicAllRTAList.Egypt EC .Liechtenstein EC .Morocco EC .Lebanon EC .Bosnia and Herzegovina EC .Palestinian Authority EC .
1(b) that ‘the legally resident spouse and children of a worker legally employed in the territory of a Member State. work. Art. the elimination of worst forms of child labour. 27 RTAs to which the EC is a party were in force and had been notified to the WTO. They recognise the responsibility to guarantee basic social rights. with the exception of seasonal workers and of workers coming under bilateral Agreements within the meaning of Article 50.8): ‘The Community shall cooperate with the OCTs in relation to labour standards. (b) assistance in the formulation of labour legislation and strengthening of existing legislation. the minimum age for admission to employment and nondiscrimination in respect to employment. the EC – Montenegro FTA provides in Article 49.52): ‘The internationally and nationally recognised core labour standards must be respected. Quite a few regulate residence and working permits for immigrants hailing from partner countries. unless otherwise provided by such Agreements. in particular the freedom of association and protection of the right to organise.3 of the EC – Chile FTA addressing trade in financial services24: ‘Nothing in this Title shall prevent a Party from applying its laws. The FTA with South Africa recognises that social progress is a condition to economic development. Interestingly.’ (emphasis added) The same agreement is quite explicit on the cooperation activities designed to improve working conditions (Art. which specifically aim at the freedom of association of workers. the abolition of forced labour. and never repeated commitment in respect of labour standards (EC – Overseas Countries and Territories (OCT). (c) educational and awareness-raising programmes aimed at eliminating child labour. When looking at these treaties a first. For instance. 24 10 .’ A clause designed to prevent a ‘race to the bottom’ – and which comes surprisingly close to the wording of the so-called non-violation clause in GATT-Article XXIII –is found in Art. during the period of that worker’s authorised stay of employment. the right to collective bargaining. (d) enforcement of labour legislation and regulations.’ Besides such ‘labour market access’ commitments which are not directly relevant for our study a few provisions on labour are worth noting here. it is the oldest FTA of the EC which is still in force and which in its main text has a very clear. shall have access to the labour market of that Member State. (2002) for a discussion on the possible relevance of GATT-Article XXIII for ‘races to the bottom’ in labor standards. The pertinent standards of the ILO shall be the point of reference for the development of these rights. It envisages a dialogue on social issues with a reference to the relevant ILO standards (Art. and establishment of natural See Bagwell et al. the elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation and the effective abolition of child labour.2): ‘The Parties consider that economic development must be accompanied by social progress.By April 2011. application of the right to organise and to bargain collectively.86. Cooperation in this area shall mainly consist of: (a) exchanges of information on respective labour laws and regulations. interesting point is that only a few FTAs of the EU contain references to domestic labour standards – even those concluded after 1995 and with developing countries. but without having to specify that local labour standards will prevail. labour conditions. the abolition of forced labour.135. regulations and requirements regarding entry and stay.
1 specifies that the labour standards referred to are ‘freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining.’ The main implementation measures foreseen for that purpose are a strengthening of the technological and research capabilities of the CARIFORUM States (Art.b). labour conditions and establishment of natural persons and supply of services.42): ‘For the purpose of this title. the elimination of forced labour.b and c).persons provided that.’ The EC – Jordan FTA has a similar provision for the cross-border supply of services (Art. provided that. the abolition of forced labour. albeit on a ‘best endeavour’ basis: 25 Official Journal of the European Union (L 289/I/3) 30. Article 192 actually mandates ‘race to the top’ improvement efforts on all sides. references to labour standards literally abound in this agreement.’ The RTA concluded with the CARIFORUM States to which we dedicate the remainder of this Subsection is so far the only comprehensive regional Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA)25. This 1953 pages long treaty contains no separate chapter dealing with labour issues. The investment chapter provides that investors will act in accordance with the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work (1998). in ILO Conventions concerning freedom of association. they do not apply them in a manner as to nullify or impair the benefits accruing to any Party under the terms of a specific provision of the Agreement.’ In respect of foreign direct investment. Nonetheless. labour or occupational health and safety legislation and standards or by relaxing core labour standards or laws aimed at protecting and promoting cultural diversity.10.69. so as not to ‘manage or operate their investments in a manner that circumvents international environmental or labour obligations’ (Art.’ Article 191. in so doing. in accordance with the Declaration. nothing in this Agreement shall prevent the Parties from applying their laws and regulations regarding entry and stay. work. it does not apply to them in such a manner as to nullify or impair the benefits accruing to the other Party under the terms of a specific provision of this Title. This starts with the Preamble calling for the signatories to respect basic labour rights ‘in line with the commitments they have undertaken within the International Labour Organisation. the elimination of the worst forms of child labour and non-discrimination in respect to employment’. labour or occupational health and safety legislation and regulations less stringent or by relaxing their domestic labour legislation and regulations or regulations designed to protect and promote cultural diversity. often overlapping or repeating each other. the abolition of child labour and the elimination of discrimination in the work place’ (Footnote to Art. in so doing.2008.4 emphasises that ‘labour standards should not be used for protectionist trade purposes’ (without defining ‘protectionist’). 11 . the Preamble to the EC – Cameroon FTA mandates that ‘the Parties shall not encourage foreign direct investment by making their domestic environmental.72 lit.7).5 lit. Article 191. Article 73 (Maintenance of standards) is probably the most explicit commitment in any RTA to avoid a ‘race to the bottom’ by way of arrangements with foreign direct investors: ‘The EC Party and the Signatory CARIFORUM States shall ensure that foreign direct investment is not encouraged by lowering domestic environmental. The core labour standards referred to are ‘further elaborated.
The impact question of this extensive set of labour standard references will be discussed in Section 5. an interesting reference to the ILO is made in the context of the consultation and monitoring process: (Art. 2010).[each Party] shall ensure that its own social and labour regulations and policies provide for and encourage high levels of social and labour standards consistent with the internationally recognised rights set forth in Article 191 and shall strive to continue to improve those laws and policies.195. (b) derogating from. and in other RTAs later on. such as labour market adjustment.3) On any issue covered by Articles 191 to 194 the Parties may agree to seek advice from the ILO on best practice. Obviously.the only limit being the non-discrimination rule each WTO Member has to abide by (Horn et al. It remains to be seen whether this new pattern in EC trade agreements will be confirmed.’ Finally. first in the other Economic Partnership Agreements yet to be concluded. and the identification of any obstacles that may prevent the effective implementation of core labour standards.’ (emphasis added) Article 193 provides that ‘the Parties agree not to encourage trade or foreign direct investment to enhance or maintain a competitive advantage by: (a) lowering the level of protection provided by domestic social and labour legislation. or failing to apply such legislation and standards. contractual freedom allows for these and even more concise and mandatory provisions . the use of effective policy tools for addressing traderelated social challenges. 12 .
Article 1(d). the arrangement has apparently been superseded by the ASEAN .php (accessed 29 April 2011). however. In respect of movement of natural persons. 26 13 .aspx accessed 29 April 2011).4) ‘Each Participant will not seek to gain trade or investment advantage by weakening or derogating from its labour laws and regulations.g.China ASEAN . Using. Concluded as part of New Zealand . this Arrangement on Labour also explicitly provides that “[it] will not legally bind the Participants” (Section 4.New Zealand Agreement (2010). policies and practices are not used for trade protectionist purposes.Thailand Closer Economic Partnership Agreement. we found that the ‘Arrangement on Labour between New Zealand and the Kingdom of Thailand’ (2005) had already provided a rather stringent formulation of commitments on labour standards26: (Art. In order to compare labour provisions in Asian agreements with EU and US RTAs we will now look at the treaties concluded by the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and some developed countries in the region.mfat. None of these regional trade agreements contains specific provisions on labour which are relevant for our study.3) ‘Each Participant will ensure that its labour laws.Japan ASEAN . 1.Asia and Pacific Interestingly. At any rate. but there is no mention of labour. The ASEAN – Japan agreement establishes economic cooperation programmes e.Korea. Table 3. RTA Parties ASEAN . the ASEANAustralia-New Zealand Agreement recognises in Chapter 9.’ As noted by ILO (2009). Available at http://www. there are no substantive labour provisions in the recent RTAs concluded in the Asia and Pacific region. Republic of ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) RTA’s in the Asian and Pacific Region Type of agreement FTA & EIA PSA & EIA FTA FTA FTA & EIA FTA Date of entry into force 01-Jan-2010 01-Jan-2005 (Goods) 01-Jul-2007 (Services) 01-Jan-2010 01-Dec-2008 01-Jan-2010 (Goods) 01-May-2009 (Services) 28-Jan-1992 Source: WTO RTA Database (http://rtais. again. Looking back into the past. 1.org/UI/PublicAllRTAList.1).’ (Art.wto.New Zealand ASEAN . the need to ‘protect the domestic labour force and permanent employment in the territories of the Parties’. April 2011 as a temporal benchmark there were 6 agreements in force and notified to the WTO with all ASEAN countries as parties.Australia .Australia . The ASEAN – Korea treaty on trade in goods explicitly reserves domestic labour legislation.India ASEAN . on intellectual property and on agriculture. regulations.nz/Trade-and-Economic-Relations/Trade-Relationships-and-Agreements/Thailand/CloserEconomic-Partnership-Agreement-text/0-labour. and perhaps tellingly.govt.
’ (Art. policies and practices for trade protectionist purposes.4) ‘The Parties recognise that it is inappropriate to set or use their labour laws.2. pp.6) The Parties recognise that it is inappropriate to encourage trade or investment by weakening or reducing the protections afforded in domestic labour laws. Accordingly. and a consultative mechanism. 72. regulations. regulations.A recent bilateral memorandum of understanding with a commitment not to undercut social protection has been concluded between New Zealand and the Philippines as a side agreement to the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Agreement (2010)27.2. exchange of information. because of the challenges to enforce compliance by the other party or to withstand such pressures if they were to come from competition with large trading partners and low labour standards. The formulation adopted here is almost identical as the above-quoted New Zealand – Philippines side agreement: (Art. 29 ILO (2009). 70-71. The provision which is to prevent a ‘race to the bottom’ reads as follows: (Art. Table 3. p.pdf(accessed 29 April 2011). consultation and dialogue.2. This agreement is to provide a ‘forum to discuss and exchange views on labour issues of interest or concern with a view to reaching consensus on those issues’ (Art.nz/assets/Downloads/Instruments/moa-labour-nzphilippines. But they also reaffirm their obligations and commitments under the ILO and add a commitment to fight protectionism. 27 14 . and according to Article 6 there is no obligation to provide information ‘contrary to the public interest or the laws’.b).5. regulations. Even so. The parties first insist on ‘their sovereign rights to set their own policies and national priorities and to set. administer and enforce their own labour laws and regulations’. Chile. policies and practices. and amicable consultation are frequently mentioned as examples for such cooperation. The Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership (2006) between Brunei Darussalam.29” Section 5 will discuss the practical implications of such provisions.5) The Parties recognise that it is inappropriate to set or use their labour laws.govt. policies and practices ‘in the context of economic development and trade liberalisation’.asean.5) ‘The Parties recognise that it is inappropriate to encourage trade or investment by weakening or reducing the protections afforded in domestic labour laws. 28 ILO (2009). Available at http://www. such a commitment to shield social policies from competitive pressures arising from trade liberalisation is remarkable. (Art. Joint projects. It foresees a long list of cooperative activities and establishes a Labour Committee. New Zealand and Singapore has a similar objective in its ‘Memorandum of Understanding on Labour Cooperation’. ‘SouthSouth’ RTAs rather aim at “cooperation in labour matters” without clear terms of reference28.1. This agreement on labour cooperation is to ‘improve working conditions and living standards’ and to uphold high level standards of labour laws.2. policies and practices for trade protectionist purposes. ILO (2009) noted that developing countries had not agreed on substantive commitments in respect of labour standards in agreements between them. Indeed.’ A definition of ‘trade protectionist purposes’ is lacking. institutional mechanisms do not reach beyond co-operation. Cases in point besides the ASEAN FTAs are the RTAs mentioned in the ILO Report concluded by China and other Asian countries which contain provisions “[n]ot to encourage trade or investment through weakening labour laws.fta.
albeit within the overarching objective of their economic development. Stringent references are still relatively sparse. many RTAs provide for technical assistance to strengthen adherence to ILO and to national standards in developing countries. 15 . In our concluding section we will try to assess. 2. In addition. whether and which types of provisions may impact on the development of labour relations in both developed and developing countries.Intermediate conclusion: three approaches to labour references This overview illustrates that the present legal status of labour provisions in RTAs remains unclear. 3. Commitments to basically implement existing domestic standards are a kind of bottom line which developing countries have come to accept as a least constraining formulation. despite more frequent and more focused provisions. Commitments to strive to improve domestic standards are prevalent in RTAs to which the US is a partner. and totally absent in RTAs between developing countries. By way of a mid-way conclusion we see three types of (not mutually exclusive) references to domestic labour standards in RTAs: 1. on the basis of our econometric study. Commitments not to lower existing domestic standards are a formulation also favoured by the EU seeking to avoid a ‘race to the bottom’.
The variable used to measure trade also differs across studies. Trade and labour market regulation: Existing empirical evidence A commitment ’not to lower’ existing domestic standards to encourage trade and investment could well indicate an expectation that some treaty members may feel tempted to lower standards in the absence of such a commitment. largely due to the lack of reliable data. The empirical work presented in this paper. The latter may reflect that a majority of developed countries have ratified most if not all ILO Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. He uses an outcome measure based on data collected by the OECD on government regulations concerning working time. but while some take all exports into account others focus on labour intensive exports . it could be argued that commitments to ‘strive to improve domestic standards’ reflect concerns about ‘regulatory chilling’. based on the ILO Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. The existence of such provisions therefore. while others work with different measures reflecting domestic labour market legislation. As usual in this type of literature. periods analysed tend to differ which may be one factor explaining different outcomes. minimum wages and workers’ representation rights30. Variables other than those measuring core labour standards have to our knowledge so far mainly been used in papers that treat labour standards as the exogenous and trade flows as the endogenous variable. The relevant studies (discussed below) differ along a range of dimensions which makes comparisons of outcomes difficult. Van Beers (1998) examines the effect of labour standard stringency on bilateral trade flows for a sample of 18 OECD countries. Another difference is that some papers focus on socalled core labour standards. Using a gravity model the author empirically examines whether high-standard OECD countries exhibit lower exports in labour-intensive goods than 30 See OECD (1994) and the presentation of relevant data in Table 1 of van Beers (1998). other measures are preferred in studies covering only or mainly developed countries. adds to a growing body of literature analysing the relationship between trade and labour standards.e. employment contracts.3. one difference being whether the measure used focuses on ratification of standards or on the outcome of labour market legislation. Differences in those labour standards are thus unlikely to explain differences in trade patterns across developed countries. reflects recognition on trade negotiators’ side of the existence of pressures for a ‘race to the bottom’. we will in our econometric work use measures for labour market regulation that go ‘beyond’ core labour standards. concern that governments will be reluctant to raise such standards in open economies. One of the objectives of this paper is to evaluate whether concerns about ‘races to the bottom’ and ‘regulatory chilling’ are justified in the context of labour market standards. i. arguably. Along similar lines. Studies also differ in the variable they use to measure labour standards. Given that we are in this paper interested in capturing possible ‘race to the bottom’ dynamics. Though growing. Do labour standards affect trade flows? The choice of labour standard measure is often linked to the country sample covered by the analysis. therefore. 16 .the presumption being that those are more likely to be affected by labour costs and thus labour standards. while a few authors have treated labour standards as endogenous to trade and have analysed whether trade influences labour standards. Most studies focus on exports. the existing evidence is still relatively thin. While measures for core-labour standards tend to be used in studies focusing on north-south trade. A large part of the literature focuses on the impact that labour standards have on trade (and aspects that influence trade).
actual weekly hours worked.e. factory inspections. Huberman and Messner (2008) distinguish short-term from longterm effects of labour market regulation in a study using a much longer time series. Results point to labour standards actually improving export performance using both measures of standards. They consider four dummy measures of labour standards for accident compensation. Bonnal (2010) examines the impact of labour standards on export performance using a subset of the outcome-based labour standard measures used in Dehejia and Samy (2008a. an index of labour market well-being. the authors also distinguish between trade within the EU and trade with external partners. However. which would have the consequence that a higher share of the costs of labour standards is born by employers. and occupational injuries. Dehijia and Samy (2008) examine the question in the context of a gravity equation and with the use of six different outcome-based measures for labour standards: the percentage of total public expenditure of GDP. In the case of intra-EU trade. 2008b) the authors address the same question using a different modelling framework (i. Dehejia and Samy (2008 and 2008b) and Bonnal (2010) use similar outcome-based measures for labour standards to analyse the effects of labour standards on trade.countries with lower standards. In particular. 2008b). their results point to an association between improved export performance and lower labour standards when the occupational injuries variable is used. The author suggests that this may reflect a relative inelasticity in the labour demand for skilled labour. For most of the other labour standard variables. the authors find little evidence of a negative impact of labour standards on export performance. Results do point to a negative effect of labour standards on extra-EU exports. In another study (Dehejia and Samy. findings indicate a stronger export performance when standards are higher. Overall. More stringent standards would then have a stronger effect on skill intensive production than on low-skill intensive production.e. maximum work hour for women and minimum age for child labour. The author uses a dynamic panel model approach to account for the possible endogeneity of labour standards. The empirical results of a dynamic fixed effects and mean group models suggest that the impact of labour regulation on trade can be negative but without long-term effects. i. a Heckscher-Ohlin framework). The authors investigate the effects of labour standards on the ratio of exports to imports of 17 Old World countries and 6 New World countries between 1870 and 1914. the number of strikes and lockouts. Van Beers (1998) finds no significant impact of labour regulation stringency on exports of labour-intensive commodities. with some evidence of positive effects. if bilateral trade flows are also distinguished according to differences in skill-intensities a significant negative impact is found on exports of both labour-intensive and capital-intensive commodities that are produced with relatively more high-skilled labour31. 31 17 . but are negatively affected when firms and workers have to adjust to the new labour standards in place. Last but not least. exports are not harmed if new labour regulation covers existing practices. In that study. trade union density rates. work injuries and the rate of strikes or lockouts.
makes the endogeneity problem very explicit. including trade openness. the empirical See Mah (1997). The discussion below also shows that the inclusion of GDP per capita (and thus potentially the interactions between trade and growth) affects outcomes. the authors find no significant impact of trade openness on child labour for their sample of developed and developing countries. the authors point to this finding reflecting income effects. a variable measuring the political orientation of government. 2006) model. and also dummy variables indicating the kind of legal system in place.forced labour and union rights. Mosley and Uno (2007) findings are rather nuanced. the difference between the studies discussed above and those discussed in this subsection is. They come to the conclusion that economic integration has mixed effects on labour rights of 90 developing countries between 1986 and 2002. They conduct IV estimations to control for the possibility of endogeneity of some of the key variables. The fact that the trade variable is sometimes put at the left side of the econometric equation and other times on the right hand side. FDI penetration. the share of the labour force employed in the industrial sector. simple OLS and IV estimations for a sample of 139 developing and developed countries show that greater trade openness is associated with lower FACB rights violations. or when trade openness is measured as unskilled labour-intensive exports (relative to GDP). Most of the relevant literature focuses on the role of core labour standards32. In addition. positive and significant effects are repeated for discrimination and child labour. an indicator variable for economic freedom. restrict the sample to non-OECD countries.as the dependent variable in an econometric analysis for a sample of developing countries. Trade openness is negatively and significantly related to the rights of the workers. Initial estimates suggest that greater openness is associated with less child labour. indicator variables for whether a country has ratified the ILO Conventions on FACB. that ‘trade’ now becomes the explanatory variable and ‘standards’ the dependent variable. When cross-country differences in income are accounted for. The author expands the analysis to a short panel and uses Fixed Effects (FE) estimation and a time dummy to account for time-varying factors. Results for the trade variable are mixed. Technically. When regional dummy variables are used.Does trade threaten or encourage the implementation of core labour standards? Only a few authors have examined whether trade is associated with lower labour standards in econometric work that treats labour standards as the dependent variable. Edmonds and Pavcnik (2006) empirically examine the impact of trade openness on child labour prevalence in developing countries. while FDI inflows have a positive impact. The same story emerges when the authors account for the possible endogeneity of income. In a restricted sample of only developing countries. Busse (2002). Neumayer and De Soysa (2006) reverse the (Kucera and Sarna. Explanatory variables include trade openness. but once a lag for the trade variable is introduced in lieu of the current measure. percentage of value added by the manufacturing sector. the authors get similar results. Most studies discussed in the following paragraphs have tried to address this. Initial results for both. results point to a negative and statistically significant impact on forced labour and union rights. OLS regressions point to a positive and significant impact of trade openness on gender equality and likewise a positive and significant impact on child labour (which is akin to a decline in child labour). Kucera and Sarna (2006) and Bakhshi and Kerr (2010) for econometric studies that use measures of core labour standards as possible determinants of trade flows. Busse (2004) uses three core labour standard outcomes . In addition. however. often by using instrumental variable (IV) techniques. and child labour . discrimination. a measure of democracy. 32 18 . and treat FACB rights violations as the endogenous variable in a gravity model. per capita income.
they distinguish between RTAs which promotes ‘soft’ or ‘hard’ standards in terms of human rights principles. Based on a lagged spatial dynamic panel model. They argue that. 2005) . but rather the level of labour standards in place in the trading partners33. 33 19 . Greenhill et al. similar to the transmission of environmental standards. population size and region dummies are included in the model specification. human right NGOs. labour standards can be transmitted from importer to exporter countries depending on the export destinations. the authors explicitly take the role of labour provisions in RTAs into account and -following (Hafner-Burton. In this paper. although this effect is weaker in terms of labour practices than labour laws. GDP per capita. economic growth. their results suggest that high labour standards in developing countries are associated with high labour standards in exporting countries. as it would have reduced the country coverage significantly. these findings suggest that importing countries are potentially able to influence positively or negatively the labour laws of the exporting country. while ‘soft’ provisions reduces the level of labour practices. they suggest that it is not the overall level of trade openness that matters. The countries covered by the database used in Hafner-Burton (2005) only overlap partly with the countries in our dataset and we therefore could not use the interesting information on ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ standards in our analysis.evidence highlights the importance of domestic institutions (proxied by a democracy and civil conflict indexes) as well as labour rights in place in neighbouring countries. In particular. Overall. once external debt. (2009) use a very different model and evaluate the so-called ‘California effect’ associated with labour standards on the same panel of developing countries. Their findings suggest that RTAs with ‘hard’ provisions lead to more stringent labour laws.
Overall. the figure reflects a pattern of convergence. with the increases in labour protection in low and middle income countries being larger than the declines experienced in high income countries. Our empirical analysis is closely related to the papers by Fischer and Somogyi (2009) and Olney (2011). We will look in particular at variables related to labour protection. Unemployment benefits are measured by Gross Replacement Rates (GRR) – that is. High income countries are found to have the highest average notice period at the beginning of the period.1.4. we try to find out whether and how trade within RTAs has affected labour standards in those countries. Regional trade figures prominently among our explanatory variables. Regional Trade and the level of labour and social protection In this paper we are interested in examining whether trade based on regional trade agreements may trigger races to the bottom and/or regulatory chilling effects. Given that industrialised countries have been and continue to be very active in concluding regional trade agreements. four. i. 4. Both papers analyse how globalization effects employment protection legislation in OECD countries. followed by what appears to be a converging pattern. but show an increasing trend over the period with increases being stronger in low income countries. Note the relatively larger dispersion in experience at the beginning of the period.e. and twenty years of service. and after two years of unemployment. Figure 1 below illustrates how domestic labour regulation changes over time and across countries (grouped by income) using the example of the average notice period (measured in months) given four years of service. the percentage of earnings that are replaced by benefits after one year of unemployment. Low and middle income countries start with relatively lower notice periods. The empirical exercise presented below differs from these two papers because of the larger country coverage and its focus on regional trade. Fischer and Somogyi (2009) find that the economic forces of globalization and international competition lower employment protection of both regular and temporary employment. The data set contains information on employment protection legislation and unemployment benefits for these countries over the 1980 to 2005 time period. Olney (2011) focuses on Foreign Direct Investment and finds evidence that countries are competitively undercutting each other’s labour standards in order to attract foreign investment. Our empirical exercise. those taking labour standards as the dependent variable. falls into the last group of empirical studies discussed above. Data Description Data used in our econometric exercise consists of a panel of 90 developed and developing countries (list of which can be found in the Appendix Table A1) that has been created by the Fondazione Rodolfo Debenedetti (FRDB) Database on Structural Reforms (2010). with a declining tendency in the latter part of the period. We thus focus on measures of specific labour standards that go beyond the Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work and fall under what is more commonly called “labour market regulation”. therefore. It also includes the amount of severance pay given in the three scenarios. Employment protection legislation measures from the FRDB Database include the advance notice employers are required to give after 9 months. 20 . Also available is unemployment benefit coverage – the share of unemployed persons who receive benefits. Appendix Table A2 provides core statistics for all nine variables used in this paper.
2. We face three problems in determining the amount of trade within the RTA.8 months). (2010). Average notice period (4 years of service). 1988). severance pay for high income countries is the lowest (just under one month) and that for middle income countries is the highest (2. starting at around 0. Following the dissolution in 1991.01). By the end of the period. 1980-2005 Source: FRDB Database on Structural Reforms. and in many instances impossible. During the Soviet era. Middle income countries show gross replacement ratios similar to low income countries in 1980. By the end of the period. probably largely attributable to the collapse of the Soviet Union. There is a noticeable jump in replacement ratios for middle income countries in the early 1990s.34 in 1980 and showing a GRR of 0. The story is somewhat different when in the case of average severance pay over the period. and this persists into 2005 (0. and this variation appears to persist over the period. The dispersion of experience at the beginning of the period is relatively large.39 in 2005. with only a few exceptions. followed by a steady decline in subsequent years to pre-1999 levels. In order to measure this variable. to measure 21 .Figure 1. we use the WTO RTA database to identify RTAs and the year of their ratification. while it is simple to measure trade among members of an RTA it is not easy. but show a considerable improvement over the period. and is even larger at the end of the period. This is followed by large increases experienced by low income countries. middle income countries have gross replacement ratios of around 0. A noticeable feature. First. former Soviet countries established laws on unemployment benefits.03). Low and high income countries start the period with similar levels that are below the levels observed in middle income countries. unemployed workers did not receive compensation in the former Soviet Union (Gregory & Collier. however is that GRRs peaked for high income countries in 1999 (0. High income countries have large GRRs that persist over the period.44). and relative stagnation for high income countries. Low income countries start the period with very low gross replacement ratios (0. with only a moderate increase occurring in the early 1990s. In this paper we are particularly interested in how labour protection evolves in the context of trade within RTAs. In the case of unemployment benefits measured by gross replacement ratios (share of wages covered by benefits after one year of unemployment) there is considerable variation in experience across country groups.
Figure 2 below shows the average share of exports between members of RTAs over the time period. based on our RTA variable and broken down by income groups. Thus if an RTA was signed between two countries in 1994.5 per cent of all exports. we face the same endogeneity problem as the studies discussed in Section 3.2 and 8.8 per cent in 2005. 54. 34 Using this variable. for example (i. In addition we use one year lags. Note that we use export shares in 2005 as a base year for all countries and throughout our analysis. First. indicating that we measure the effect of the conclusion of an RTA on labour market regulation in the following year. Low and middle income countries both show relatively low RTA trade in 1980 (8.e.6 per cent in developing countries. because the ratification of an RTA is likely to affect trade among RTA partners. the variable would indicate “0” for these two countries for 1980 to 1993. namely that labour market regulation may have an effect on actual trade. the increase is relatively modest for developing countries overall. we control to a certain extent for MFN trade. and a “1” for 1994 until the end of the period. we face an additional endogeneity problem. where export shares correspond to the share of RTA exports as a percentage of total exports34. increasing to 49. we construct a variable indicating the presence of a Regional Trade Agreement (RTA) for each country pairing at each time period. And third. We can see quite readily that trade within RTAs has grown considerably for all countries over the period – in 1980. High income countries show higher RTA trade over the entire period. compared to a more modest 28. While middle income countries show considerable growth in RTA trade. Canada and Mexico with the signing of NAFTA).which trade among those members actually benefits from preferential treatment as a consequence of the RTA.6 per cent respectively). RTA related exports trade agreements accounted for 12. We try to solve these endogeneity problems by constructing our RTA-trade variable in the following way.8 per cent of exports by middle income countries were taking place in the context of RTAs. We then weigh this indicator variable by export shares in 2005 for each country pairing being a party of the relevant RTA. Accordingly our RTA variable is constructed using the following equation: TPit = ∑ RTAijt × TradeShareij 2005 j N with i ≠ j where RTAijt is a dummy variable taking the value of 1 if there is a RTA between country i and j at time t. In 2005. and also show considerable growth. Second. 22 .
Figure 2. The data on labour market regulation do not provide any clear evidence of a general race to the bottom. 70 Average exports within RTAs. 1980-2005 60 50 40 Overall High income 30 Middle income Low income 20 10 0 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 Source: Authors’ calculations. Overall our data. therefore. instead. Overall the description of our dataset presented above illustrates that trade within RTAs has increased significantly over our observation period and that this has on average been the case for countries of all income groups in our dataset.35 35 Standard statistics for our main variables can be found in the appendix. Only in high income countries there appears to be a pattern of a reduction in labour protection. rather seem to reflect a “race to the middle” than a race to the bottom. In low and middle income countries. labour protection has tended to increase over time. 23 .
This result can partially be explained by the nature of the dependent variable. More specifically. it will be interesting to observe how the significance of the GDP per capita variable evolves as we change specification of our regressions. political rights. In order to mitigate any potential endogeneity between the dependent variable and the time-varying explanatory variables. We always include the log of GDP per capita in our regressions in a simple form and also squared. Two additional economic controls are included: level of industrial employment and the share of manufacturing value added in GDP. This is to control for the interaction effect between trade and growth highlighted in Edmonds and Pavcnik (2006).t −1 + X it β + Di γ + Tt δ + u it where Lit represents a measure of labour standards in country i at time t (e. the difference is not statistically different from zero. Since the level of labour standard is relatively non-time varying. the labour market regulation of which figures as the dependent variable. The test consists of comparing the difference between the parameters estimate associated with the random and fixed effects. The linear econometric specification reads as follows: Lit = c + αTPi . the random specification is efficient and consistent. employment in the industry sector. the Hausman test suggests that the random effect specification is preferred over the random effect. while the fixed effects remain consistent. Therefore. uit represents the idiosyncratic error term. the parameters of both specifications are statistically different from each other. In fact. the standard deviation within countries is always statistically smaller than the variation between countries (see the Standard Deviation Decomposition Table). We expect both variables to be positively correlated with labour market protection. The random effects are inconsistent. we perform the standard Hausman test.36 Estimation results In a first set of estimations we regress different measures for labour market regulation on our full set of control variables.4. For all specifications considered. In order to determine whether random or fixed effects should be considered.2. regional and income group dummies) and time effects are represented by Di and Tt . the individual effects. chief executive years in office). while the fixed effect is consistent but less efficient. Other exogenous control variables are included in the matrix X it (real GDP per capita. Our regressions also include a set of political control variables as it is expected that labour This specific feature of the dependent variable also rules out the use of a dynamic panel specification. The RTA variable is based on imports from partners who are members to an RTA concluded by the country. notice period.g. Under the null hypothesis. civil liberties and democracy indexes. the inclusion of a lagged dependent variable leads to high multi-collinearity affecting the level of significance of the remaining parameters. Under the alternative hypothesis. while country (e. Finally. In fact.g. Estimation Procedure Econometric Methodology In order to assess whether regional trade has played any role in the changing pattern of labour market regulation in our sample. 36 24 . respectively. manufacturing value added. severance pay or gross replacement ratio) and TPit is the portion of trade flows attributable to preferential trade agreements between countries i and j at time t. some specifications includes the lagged values of the control variables. whether fixed or random. we use a panel regression covering up to 74 countries from 1980 to 2005. already captured a high share of within variation.
the RTA variable. severance pay reflects the highest burden for employers in case of separation. i. In all three cases the sign of the estimated parameter is negative. Among the policy controls. and our set of economic controls. notice periods may therefore be the more obvious target in the case of relatively short working relationships and severance pay in the case of long relationships. In other words. Results do not differ significantly for random or fixed effects specifications. which may be linked to the fact that very few countries in our sample provide any employment benefits at all after such a long period of unemployment. the RTA trade variable is significant. The difference between the two columns is that in the (3) column. To lower the burden of labour protection on employers. and gross replacement ratio of unemployment benefit after 1 and 2 years of unemployment. All control variables are either insignificant or tend to be significant with the expected sign. the notice period may represent a higher cost than the severance pay. in three out of eight regressions. severance pay after 20 years of service and gross replacement ratio after one year of unemployment. i.market regulation is more protective in countries with a more stable political environment or a stronger protection of civil or political rights. one exception being the significant and negative relationship between the share of manufacturing in GDP and gross replacement ratios. civil rights stand out as the variable systematically having a positive and strongly significant correlation with labour market protection. The regression using gross replacement ratios after two years as a dependent variable performs generally badly. severance pay after 9 months. Tables 4 to 6 report only estimated coefficients for our main variable of interest. For workers who have only stayed with a company for a short time. regressions included regional dummies. Two findings deserve to be highlighted.e. 25 . civil rights. Full regression results are reported in Appendix-tables 4 to 11. First.e. Yet this positive relationship weakens as countries become richer as reflected in the negative significant sign in the squared GDP per capita variable. In the tables 4 to 6 below. Second. 4 years and 20 years of service. The findings concerning notice periods in severance pay may reflect that for workers employed for 20 years and more. Sources of data are described in Appendix-Table 3. in the regressions figuring notice period after 9 months of service. we report the findings for a first set of regressions figuring eight different dependent variables: notice period after 9 months. Column (2) and (3) reflect findings when a random effects specification is used. The first column in the table shows results for regressions using fixed effects. notwithstanding the presence of the GDP per capita variable. years in office and democracy. our findings may be a reflection of the fact that a call for more flexible labour markets in the light of globalization will mainly affect notice periods after nine months of service and severance pay after long periods of service. GDP per capita tends to be significant in our regressions and has a positive sign indicating that countries strengthen labour protection as they become richer. 4 years and 20 years of service. The four control variables included are: political rights.
052) 0. All regressions also include political controls.483) -0.118*** (0.071 (0.133* (0.15 (0.Table 4.121 (0.033) -0.097* (0.590) -0.c.)t-1 (ln (GDP p.084*** (0.726*** (0.635) -0.070*** (0.134* (0.052) 0.135* (0.026) 0.404*** (0.079 (0.c.097) 2.082*** (0.c.556) -0.026) 0.559) -0.122 (0.136) -0.195 (0.131 (0. Regional trade and notice periods (1) Fixed Effects (2) Random Effects (3) Random Effects Dependent variable: Notice period after 9 months Regional trade flows RTAs*Importst-1 Economic controls ln (GDP p.004 (0.550*** (0.472) -0.144) 0.578*** (0.))2t-1 ln (Industrial Employment)t-1 ln (Manufacturing VA/GDP) t-1 1.029) 0.))2t-1 ln (Industrial Employment)t-1 ln (Manufacturing VA/GDP) t-1 2.091*** (0.367** (0.013 (0.797*** (0. country dummies and time effects (full results in the Appendix).074) 1.057) 0.453*** (0.147) -0.095*** (0. * Statistical significance at the 10% level ** Statistical significance at the 5% level *** Statistical significance at the 1% level 26 .375** (0.)t-1 (ln (GDP p.155 (0.029) 0.075) -0.719*** (0.c.060) 0.361*** (0.051) 0.059) 0.c.027) 0.155) -0.052) 0.)t-1 (ln (GDP p.050) 0.130* (0.253*** (0.001 (0.035) -0.))2t-1 ln (Industrial Employment)t-1 ln (Manufacturing VA/GDP) t-1 1.071) 1.c.094) 2.077) -0.136*** (0.142) Note: robust standard errors in parentheses.027) 0.078*** (0.145) 0.033 (0.138*** (0.081 (0.033) -0.034 (0.132) -0.073) 1.149) Dependent variable: Notice period after 4 years Regional trade flows RTAs*Importst-1 Economic controls ln (GDP p.048 (0.096) 0.515) -0.423*** (0.132) Dependent variable: Notice period after 20 years Regional trade flows RTAs*Importst-1 Economic controls ln (GDP p.144*** (0.073 (0.111 (0.076) 1.117 (0.604) -0.049) 0.512) -0.
327*** (0.549*** (0.033 (0.060*** (0.934** (3.038) -0.025) 0.584*** (0.307) -0.096 (0.689) -0.c.534) -0.665* (1. country dummies and time effects (full results in the Appendix).450) -0.Table 5.435) 0.02 (0.317*** (0.c.106) Dependent variable: Severance pay after 4 years Regional trade flows RTAs*Importst-1 Economic controls ln (GDP p.198) -0.))2t-1 ln (Industrial Employment)t-1 ln (Manufacturing VA/GDP) t-1 -1.293** (1.)t-1 (ln (GDP p.087) -1.027 (0.116) -0.347*** (0.311*** (0.007 (0.424) -3.744 (0.200) 0.497** (0.112 (0.404*** (0.066* (0.202 (0.102) 0.630*** (0.086) -1.110) 0.205) -0.524) -2.442) Note: robust standard errors in parentheses.433) 0.207*** (0.062) 0.406) 0.018 (0.313) -0.042) -0.031 (0.))2t-1 ln (Industrial Employment)t-1 ln (Manufacturing VA/GDP) t-1 7.032 (0.084) 0.15 (0. All regressions also include political controls.454) -0.762*** (0.024) 0.040) -0.163 (0.092*** (0.))2t-1 ln (Industrial Employment)t-1 ln (Manufacturing VA/GDP) t-1 -0. Regional trade and severance pay (1) Fixed Effects (2) Random Effects (3) Random Effects Dependent variable: Severance pay after 9 months Regional trade flows RTAs*Importst-1 Economic controls ln (GDP p.c.181) -1.136) 0.205) -0.182) -1.c.795) 8.391 (0.529*** (3.)t-1 (ln (GDP p.173 (0.105) 0.669) -0.066) 0.062) 0.814) -3.009 (0.)t-1 (ln (GDP p.971*** (3.107) 0.508** (0.155 (0.007 (0.316*** (0.078*** (0.650) -0.084** (1.463) 0.138** (0.307) Dependent variable: Severance pay after 20 years Regional trade flows RTAs*Importst-1 Economic controls ln (GDP p.c.856) 11.098 (0. * Statistical significance at the 10% level ** Statistical significance at the 5% level *** Statistical significance at the 1% level 27 .074*** (0.c.023) 0.200) -1.016 (0.
008 (0.052*** (0.031 (0.104) 0 (0.017) 0.007) 0.235* (0.024 (0.005 (0.012* (0.006) 0.007) -0. one that takes a positive value for middle income countries member to an RTA and one reflecting low income countries.012) -0. we split the original RTA dummy into three elements: one that takes positive values for high income countries being member to an RTA.006) 0.c.238* (0.038) Dependent variable: Gross replacement ratio after 2 years Regional trade flows RTAs*Importst-1 Economic controls ln (GDP p.116) -0.017) 0.012 (0.006 (0.))2t-1 ln (Industrial Employment)t-1 ln (Manufacturing VA/GDP) t-1 0.061*** (0.017 (0.026) -0. we will focus on the three variables for which we found significant results in our first set of regressions: notice period after nine month of services.017) -0.003 (0. middle or high income countries.007) -0.003 (0.008) -0.063** (0.032 (0.007) 0. severance pay after 20 years of services and gross replacement ratios after 1 year of service.015) 0.005 (0.012 (0.146 (0.024) Note: robust standard errors in parentheses.009 (0.012 (0.039) -0.105) 0. All regressions also include political controls.c.097) 0. * Statistical significance at the 10% level ** Statistical significance at the 5% level *** Statistical significance at the 1% level In the following.014) -0. 28 .120) -0.011 (0. In order to examine whether regional trade has a different effect on low.103*** (0.007) 0.087** (0.011) -0. Regional trade and gross replacement ratios (1) Fixed Effects (2) Random Effects (3)Random Effects Dependent variable: Gross replacement ratio after 1 year Regional trade flows RTAs*Importst-1 Economic controls ln (GDP p.058*** (0.)t-1 (ln (GDP p.)t-1 (ln (GDP p.c.087** (0.))2t-1 ln (Industrial Employment)t-1 ln (Manufacturing VA/GDP) t-1 -0.013 (0.Table 6.c.139) -0.014) 0. country dummies and time effects (full results in the Appendix).006) 0.051*** (0.042** (0.026) 0.010) -0.037) -0.
Regional trade and labour domestic market regulation.184*** (0.001 (0.047) -0. RTAs*Importst-1*Low Inc.026 (0.417** (0.e.c.025) 0.250) 0.155 (2. the RTA variable is only significant for the notice period variable and its sign is positive.085) (2) Severance pay after 20 years (3) Gross replacement ratio after 1 year Note: robust standard errors in parentheses.)t-1 (ln (GDP p. regional trade is correlated to higher labour protection in middle income countries.028 (0.287*** (0. Table 7.071) -3. RTAs*Importst-1*Middle Inc.006) 0.623*** (0.619 (14.644) 968 74 -0.195 (0.046) -0. this could indicate the existence of a regulatory chilling effect. VA/GDP)t-1 Constant Observations Number of id 0.005 (0. lower severance pay and lower gross replacement ratios in high income countries.103 (0. The sign is always negative and parameter size has increased significantly.169) -1.24 (0.047*** (0. The RTA dummy is highly significant. For middle income countries. Economic controls ln (GDP p.))2t-1 ln (Industrial Employm.e.156** (0.633 (0. country dummies and regional dummies. i.989) 2.534 (1. by income group (1) Notice period after 9 months Dependent variable: Random Effects Regional trade flows RTAs*Importst-1*High Inc.170) -0. we do not find a relationship between regional trade and labour market regulation.055) 0.497) 952 73 -1.108) -0. instead.The results illustrated in the table below are quite striking: the GDP per capita variables now become insignificant.906) -0.c.357 (0. For low income countries.017) 0. low income countries do not increase labour protection even if they grow.012) -0.663 (0. i.268 (2.444) -9.819) -2.361) 968 74 2. but only for high income countries.480) -0.024 (0.990) -2.008 (0. * Statistical significance at the 10% level ** Statistical significance at the 5% level *** Statistical significance at the 1% level 29 . Regional trade thus appears to be strongly correlated with shorter notice periods.444 (3.)t-1 ln (Manufact.108) 0. political controls . In conjunction with the finding that the GDP per capita variables become insignificant. All regressions also include time effects.465) 0.652*** (1.
we are interested in finding out which type of RTAs drive the negative coefficients for high income countries reported in the table above. we split our RTA dummies into further subgroups. According to the findings reported below. The findings reported in Table 8 below do not support the idea that weakening of labour market regulations in industrialized countries is driven by trade with low income countries. These findings are in line with findings in Fischer and Somogyi (2009) and Olney (2011). it is competition among countries of a similar level of income that appears to put the highest pressure on labour market regulation in the rich world. To check whether it is indeed the case that the above findings are driven by North-South trade. In particular.The race-to-the-bottom argument is often used in conjunction with the phenomenon of North-South trade. On the contrary: the only type of RTAs for which we consistently find highly significant negative coefficients are RTAs among high income countries. 30 . the idea being that trade with countries having lower labour standards puts the high labour standard country under pressure to reduce its own standards.
517) 0.215) -1.284) -25.054) 0.169) 4.182) 46. country dummies and regional dummies are included.257) -1.508) 0. Employm.132) 1.824) 2.941** (2.265 3.591) -0.817) 968 0.824) Yes -1.169) 0.451*** (0.007) -0.224 (3.142*** (15.490*** (0.045) -0.121*** (0.259 (0.475) -0.057) -13.855 (1.480) 952 0.162** (0.560) 1.544) 952 0.988* (3.908*** (15.001 (0.301) 27.051*** (0.892) 322.775 (1.564) 952 74 74 74 74 74 73 73 73 Note: robust standard errors in parentheses.487) -1.690*** (0.451) 968 1.208) 0.285** (0.707 (9.535) -0.19 (0.390) -0.564) -7.196 (0.072 (3.442 (5.151 (3.058* (0.068) No -2.029) -0.867) No 13.939*** (19.708) -3.170) 0.520) -12.350) -0.654) -2.071) No -5.c.012 (0.007 (0.335 (4.)t-1 (ln (GDP p.552) 3.099 (0.389*** (17.219) -6.437 (15.081** (0.722 (3.194*** (119.760) 0.246** (21.126) -0.747) 3.Table 8.967 (2.076 (6.c.080) -0.912* (0.931 (15.534) -0.159 (0.032 (0.960* (0.718 (3.500) 5.078) -0.67) 1.509) 0.061) -14.224) 2.130) 56.144) 2.209) -2.464) -0.042** (0.329) -0.221) 0.189) -48.227*** (4.435) -0.311 (3.185*** (0.700*** (0.032) 0.597* (1.489) -7.038) -0.009 (0.279*** (0.957* (4.124) 0.137*** (41. VA/GDP) t-1 Country dummies Constant Observations R-squared Number of id Regional trade and labour market regulation by income group combinations Notice period after 9 months (1) FE (2) RE (3) RE Severance pay after 20 years (4) FE (5) RE (6) RE Gross replacement ratio after 1 year (7) FE (8) RE (9) RE -1.193*** (0.387) -0.128) 0. Dependent variable: Regional trade flows RTAs*Impt-1*H-H RTAs*Impt-1*H-L RTAs*Impt-1*H-M RTAs*Imp t-1*L-H RTAs*Imp t-1*L-L RTAs*Imp t-1*L-M RTAs*Imp t-1*M-H RTAs*Imp t-1*M-L RTAs*Imp t-1*M-M Economic controls ln (GDP p.007) 0.297 (0.267) -21.010) -0.249*** (0.117 (0.928*** (4.04 (0.228* (15.468) -0.290) -80.517* (14.858 (3.435 (1.675*** (118.682) -0.039) 1. time effects.092 (0.038 (0.598 (14.045 (0.920) 341.274** (0.546) -0.928) -59.156** (0.009 (0.091* (1.085) 0.004 (0.207) -305.)t1 ln (Manufact.220) 5.155) 0.009 (0.009) 1.028 (0.838*** (7.115) -63.474) -8.071) Yes -4.017) Yes 0.235) 6.011) -0.119) 1.052) 0.734*** (1.002 (0.884) 0.017 (0.770*** (126.017) No -0.993*** (1.247*** (2.820*** (0.086) -0.051 (0.01 (0.159** (0.056) 390.085) 63.697 (1.438*** (0.930*** (16.137) 968 0.056 (3.266 (0.458*** (0. * Statistical significance at the 10% level ** Statistical significance at the 5% level *** Statistical significance at the 1% level 31 .017) No 0.))2t-1 ln (Ind.012 (0.121 (0.166** (0.073 (0.301* (2.495) -1.026) -0.681** (33.484) -1.289) -0.191 (0.007) 0.188 (0.095) -6.137) 968 0.538 (0.047 (0.842) 0.081 (0.827 (16.088* (38.263 (1.481) 2.524) -0.494) -0.143 (0.141 (0.673) -0.140) 0.717 (3.578) 968 0.018 (0.401*** (0.062) -14. Political controls.321 (0.069) -0.534 (2.536) 968 -0.658*** (64.067) -0.011) -0.230) 0.309*** (0.870* (0.214 74 0.65 (10.060*** (0.128 (0.813) No -3.12 0.112) 0.457) 2.242 (0.814) -33.002 (0.785) -52.219) 6.392** (0.289) -7.209) -1.393*** (0.283** (0.883 (5.006 (0.127) 0.053) 0.729 (4.
In middleincome countries. However. instead. what is the relative value of these provisions? Our starting point is a recognition that the ultimate value test for labour references lies to a large extent in treaty implementation37. such standard lowering appears to take place mainly in the context of RTAs between rich countries. or non-observance) of such standards. whereas the older ones usually refer to core See also Horn. mostly be relevant for low income – rather than middle income – countries that are members of an RTA. in view of the large adherence in Latin America to core labour standards. In other words. Our analysis. Besides. We have found that there is indeed evidence of lowering of labour protection within regional trade areas. but only in high income countries. 2004. however. if not on compliance with the broad principles embodied in the standards” (Elliott. 658). According to the author. We first recall from our earlier findings that a prominent provision in many treaties is a commitment by each trading partner to “strive to ensure” higher standards (‘type 1’ reference)38. Mavroidis and Sapir (2010) for a discussion of the enforceability of labour provisions in EU and US preferential trade agreements. indicates that inclusion of references to domestic labour market regulation can be justified on economic grounds. looking at the various efforts and mixed results achieved by the US in the past decades. Aaronson (2005) considers it a “laggard” (p. 178) in a perspective of global Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). We now turn to the question which RTA commitments relating to domestic labour standards might be the most effective ones to avoid the observed weakening (or nonimprovement. In the case of low income countries we did not find any evidence for a lowering of labour protection related to RTA trade. but our findings could be interpreted as evidence for a regulatory chilling effect. We find that this does not in itself ensure positive action. Institutional framework: Do references to labour standards in RTAs influence domestic regulation? The last two sections looked at the economics of labour standard references in RTAs. 37 32 . Finally. when we compare US and EU treaties on a timeline we find that even the comparatively older US treaties involving labour provisions are formulated more stringently than the ones concluded later on by the EU39. p. our econometric work does not allow for robust conclusions concerning ‘type 3’ references in RTAs to simply apply existing domestic labour standards. 175). Unfortunately data limitations do not allow us to examine whether the inclusion of labour market provisions in RTAs has had a direct influence on the relationship between regional trade and domestic labour market regulation. such a provision “would approximate a commitment to international standards for most of the region […] [despite the fact that the US itself is] “the clear outlier on ratification. Provisions enjoining all parties not to lower existing domestic standards (‘type 2’) are mostly found in relatively recent treaties. [When firms act irresponsibly] America’s foreign policy interests can be compromised” (p.5. We therefore look at how different implementation issues are being dealt with in selected RTAs – besides the various cooperation mechanisms also described in Section 2. Elliott suggests that. 38 Perhaps a trifle optimistic. instead. given that our measure for labour protection is based on legal texts and not on their actual implementation. 39 It might be worth noting that. regional trade is positively or not at all correlated with labour protection. Commitments to strive to improve domestic standards (‘type 1’ references) would. though. on the basis of our analysis we would expect that commitments not to lower existing domestic standards (‘type 2’ references in Section 2) are most likely to become relevant for high income countries in particular in the context of RTAs among high income countries. it is important that American firms “uphold such [American] values as they produce goods and services abroad. Interestingly.
RTAs also increasingly contain provisions foreseeing commitments by all Parties to enforce their own domestic labour legislation (‘type 3’ references). The impact of the newer treaties on domestic labour regulation remains thus to be seen. ‘Type 3’ looks even more innocuous: to apply one’s own legislation. Moreover. It could be argued that a RTA would hardly be a good forum to negotiate new labour standards. even more so since the competent authorities for labour issues are not the lead agencies in a RTA. because many (developing) countries do have high levels of labour standards but find it difficult to enforce them at the national level or through the traditional ILO mechanisms – perhaps especially with more open borders.labour standards and cooperation programmes. therefore. Might there also be a regulatory race between the EU and the US as the main drivers of the trade and labour agenda? Our assumption is that both seem to be aware that their RTAs fall somewhat short of their own expectations. quite a few of these treaties contain relatively weak commitments. Many RTAs among developing countries do not contain any references. To aim at effectively preventing a ‘race to the bottom’ thus seems to be a more realistic objective for a trade agreement than to play an active role in social policy improvements. they agree. In other words. for example. For instance. In this context the priorities of developing countries are on economic development and on the primacy of domestic standards over international ones. Nonetheless. 33 . but not all are successfully enforcing their own legislation. 40 Part Six. If we further compare US and EU treaties we find that the former have relatively stronger formulations aiming at adherence to labour standards. that ‘economic development must be accompanied by social progress’ (EC – South Africa RTA. General Provisions Article 42. see Section 2). As in other politically sensitive areas and on a more conjectural level the size of the trading partner might also have a certain bearing on the normative value of labour provisions in RTAs. but do not automatically ensure such adherence in a more effective way. In these circumstances and depending on implementation provisions. even the relatively stringent formulations found in the NAFTA/NAALC look like just a commitment to apply one’s own laws – this might well be because the United States as the main driver has not even ratified the relevant international norms. on the face of it. or they commit them to undefined standard improvements (parties ’shall ensure’ that their labour legislation provides for high levels of labour standards). on the question of enforcement the NAALC makes it very clear that ’[n]othing in this Agreement shall be construed to empower a Party's authorities to undertake labor law enforcement activities in the territory of another Party’40. Even the most substantive provisions merely enjoin the parties to ’strive to ensure’ adherence to domestic standards. our assumption is that even a pledge to just apply domestic standards can be important when it comes to implementation. most countries prohibit child labour at least in its worst forms. When we now look at the implementation value of these different types of provisions we have to acknowledge that. references in RTAs could bring about improvements simply by helping to ensure adherence to existing domestic legislation. Also noteworthy is the fact that on both sides of the Atlantic the calls for more stringent provisions come from the legislative bodies rather than from the executives.
34 . (2007) compare these RTAs with those of the US. For the question of labour standards they also submit a template text inspired by the NAALC side agreement and which takes the latter’s implementation experience into account. the actual outcomes of the two approaches are not very different. as seen by US lawmakers but which can also find acceptance in partner countries. the search for a level-playing field. for future RTAs of the EU. Demands for further changes by US policymakers come as a surprise to nobody. Singapore.41 The debate in the United States is evolving even more rapidly. Nonetheless. They conclude that despite the comparatively higher stringency of the US agreements. the authors generally recommend to follow the more stringent formulations in the US treaties and to expand the effective sanctions foreseen in the EU treaties. Furthermore. (2009) for similar findings and recommendations. dispute settlement procedures. and sanctions. The authors also recommend that “sanctions should be foreseen. According to that text. Clearly. labour issues are among the reasons why the three most recent RTAs with Korea. including for the EU-MERCOSUR FTA still under negotiation. 41 See Scherrer et al. is far from being over. and Morocco) fail to satisfy the concerns of US lawmakers in respect of their impact on domestic labour standards. In their analysis of the respective effectiveness of their social and environmental norms. In a 2009 report of the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) the view is expressed that environmental and labour provisions in four examined RTAs (with Jordan. As we have already noted. specific provisions in respect of labour standards would allow independent investigation and monitoring as well as public participation concerning the initiation of reviews of violations. Chile. Columbia and Panama have so far failed to find acceptance in the US Congress. In the remainder of our impact analysis we focus on three implementation aspects: public participation. all labour provisions would be enforceable and subject to mediation and regular dispute settlement under a (separate) supervisory body. Bourgeois et al. although the choice between imposing trade measures and fines needs further assessment”.In 2007 the European Parliament commissioned a study on the enforcement performance of social and environmental norms in RTAs concluded by the EU.
As we have seen in Section 2. p. implementation follows different avenues: (a) consultations. published by the Secretariat of the Commission on Labor Cooperation.” (Art. can be enforced. and the identification of any obstacles that may prevent the effective implementation of core labour standards. and when that failure represents a ‘persistent pattern’ of behaviour.Public participation When looking at other RTAs in force we see perhaps the highest normative value as a contribution to effective labour standards in the public participation opportunities established in agreements such as NAALC.43 EU RTAs have so far not included formal and elaborate procedures for a joint mechanism on public participation for labour issues. the use of effective policy tools for addressing trade-related social challenges. as appropriate. industrial relations and migrant workers. numerous advocacy groups are today capable of using precisely such transparency tools for the purpose of ensuring adherence to domestic legislation in their own countries. The parties have an obligation to provide for a (qualified) access to tribunals for such persons: “Each Party's law shall ensure that such persons may have recourse to. such as labour market adjustment.naalc. including in respect of occupational safety and health. procedures by which rights arising under: 1.1). Article 192 recognises the right of the CARICOM States “to regulate in order to establish their own social regulations and labour standards in line with their own social development priorities” – but it also obliges them to “provide for and encourage high levels of social and labour standards” and to “strive to” continue to improve those laws and policies44. including with the ILO acting as an intermediary45 (b) measures to combat child labour under the general exceptions clause in Article 224 used to protect public See the Public Comments made in the context of the Four Year Review. It foresees public participation for “persons with a legally recognized interest under its law in a particular matter” (Art. available at http://new. and 2. 45 Art. even though implementation of commitments in the EU – CARIFORUM RTA appears to be somewhat inspired by the NAALC. 192 in fine. formal dispute settlement is only available in cases of a trade-related failure to enforce social legislation.”42 The NAALC is administered by a ‘Commission for Labor Cooperation’ with its own ministerial Council and a Secretariat. However. 195/3: “On any issue covered by Articles 191 to 194 the Parties may agree to seek advice from the ILO on best practice. 355.org/index. its labor law.4. Indeed. in the face of free trade and economic integration. and a mechanism of intergovernmental enforcement.e. submissions relating to the labour agreement are lodged with the concerned ‘National Administrative Office’ established by the NAALC.” 42 35 . collective agreements. have virtually no recourse under the NAALC other than to make submissions to the [National Administrative Office] NAO of a signatory government which can only recommend ministerial consultations with the offending signatory government. For this reason we do not necessarily agree with the Canadian Association of Labour Lawyers (CALL) which has argued that “workers and unions that are the victims of governmental failure to enact and enforce labour laws protecting freedom of association. and this ‘NAO’ is under no obligation to take the matter any further. employment standards. However.4.cfm?page=255 (accessed 30 April 2011) 43 Bartels (2009). 44 Art. While consultations may be held for all NAFTA matters.2) There are two types of procedures: ‘citizen submissions’ i. the possibility of submissions by NGOs or other persons claiming that a party is not effectively enforcing its domestic laws.
2 have failed to result in a satisfactory solution: (Art. technical or professional expertise or experience’. This may be partly due to the relatively recent nature of these RTAs.4 or the meetings held in the ambit of the ‘Labor Affairs Council’ under Article 17. Nevertheless.4 (Consultations) or a meeting of the Commission under Article 21.5 (Intervention of the Commission) and. Article 195 (‘Consultation and monitoring process’) provides in paragraph 5 that if ‘the matter has not been satisfactorily resolved through consultations between the Parties pursuant to paragraph 3 any Party may request that a Committee of Experts be convened to examine such matter’.12. 36 . or in the resolution of disputes arising under international agreements. only if formal consultations under Article 21. in the eyes of the Canadian Association of Labour Lawyers even this treaty is ‘seriously flawed’ and has failed to deliver expected results. including when it comes to formal litigation under NAFTA48. At the outset it should be recognised that social and in particular labour policies are among the most sensitive issues in any country and society. It is too early to assess the impact of this treaty which was only provisionally applied as from 29 December 200847.a with a more general wording. or they do so by recognising the primacy of 46 47 Footnote (1) in Art.e. The most stringent example of an RTA providing for both trade and financial sanctions in case of infringements is the already discussed NAALC.207. Moreover.2008. the need for a complainant to prove a negative trade impact of a labour standard modification is likely to be difficult. i. at least two members of the arbitration panel shall have specific expertise in the field (Art. as provided in Chapter Twenty-One (Dispute Settlement). It might be worth noting in this context that NAALC in Article 30. Available literature has not provided us with evidence of litigation being used as an avenue for strengthening labour standards or avoiding a ‘race to the bottom’.6). While the draft US – Peru FTA foresees ‘Cooperative Labor Consultations’ in Article 17.4).205) or arbitration (Art.206ss).7.2. Official Journal of the European Union (L 352/62) 31. In such a case the complaint will go straight to mediation (Art. thereafter have recourse to the other provisions of that Chapter. Some agreements especially between developing countries either implicitly exclude labour matters from formal dispute settlement. As pointed out for the NAALC. Dispute settlement procedures This brings us to dispute settlement. At the same time and as we have seen above. The Council may inform the Commission of how the Council has endeavored to resolve the matter through consultations. Other reasons might be the multiple limitations and qualifications for rights and intervention possibilities of trading partners.7. Under Part III (‘Dispute avoidance’) a conflict on social aspects may only be referred to formal dispute settlement if the above-mentioned consultation procedures fail to produce a mutually acceptable solution after 9 months (Art.security and public morals46 and (c) through dispute settlement. or other relevant scientific. Like many others. a complaining party may defer the matter to dispute settlement procedures under Chapter 21. For all social aspects including labour issues. 48 See NAFTA Article 2009. we find that quite a few RTAs other than the NAALC have dispute settlement provisions potentially applicable to labour-related disputes.204.195/1.” In most other agreements already in force there seem to be few if any formal dispute settlement cases in case of disagreements over labour standards in the framework of a trade agreement. the EC – CARIFORUM agreement does not exclude recourse to dispute settlement.17.2 provides that ‘Roster members shall have expertise or experience in labor law or its enforcement.6) “If the consulting Parties have failed to resolve the matter within 60 days of a request under paragraph 1. the complaining Party may request consultations under Article 21.5.
Based on the idea that such infringements also constitute a change in the economic parameters underlying the agreement.e. there are two possible forms of consequences in cases of (established) infringements of RTA obligations in the field of labour. the other agreements are either silent or do not describe the avenues open for cases of infringements specifically on the labour clauses51. withdrawal of preferential tariffs)49 as well as through ‘monetary enforcement’50. 50 Annex 39. including a so-called ‘labor cooperation mechanism’ (see Section 2). Others establish special consultative mechanisms with a view to avoiding formal litigation. however. The panel proceedings shall be conducted in accordance with the Model Rules of Procedure. On the written request of any disputing Party delivered to the other Parties and its Section of the Secretariat. 49 37 . the other party (or parties) may (a) withdraw certain concessions under the RTA and/or (b) apply a ‘fine’ to the trade partner having violated its own labour regulation. the NAFTA/NAALC is the only RTA foreseeing retaliation measures by way of a ‘suspension of concessions’ (i. See Article 2019 (Non-Implementation-Suspension of Benefits). Here we note that among all the WTO-notified RTAs in force. such complaining Party may suspend the application to the Party complained against of benefits of equivalent effect until such time as they have reached agreement on a resolution of the dispute. for the duration of the violation. if only as a matter of last resort. All three texts on labour remain silent on the application of specific sanctions in cases of violations. The panel shall present its determination within 60 days after the last panelist is selected or such other period as the disputing Parties may agree. the Commission shall establish a panel to determine whether the level of benefits suspended by a Party pursuant to paragraph 1 is manifestly excessive.national standards. Ultimately. Needless to say both forms of compensation or retaliation are highly sensitive and controversial from a political viewpoint. If in its final report a panel has determined that a measure is inconsistent with the obligations of this Agreement or causes nullification or impairment in the sense of Annex 2004 and the Party complained against has not reached agreement with any complaining Party on a mutually satisfactory resolution pursuant to Article 2018(1) within 30 days of receiving the final report.3 (see below). In considering what benefits to suspend pursuant to paragraph 1: (a) a complaining Party should first seek to suspend benefits in the same sector or sectors as that affected by the measure or other matter that the panel has found to be inconsistent with the obligations of this Agreement or to have caused nullification or impairment in the sense of Annex 2004. Colombia. Sanctions: Preference withdrawals and fines Finally we turn to the even more delicate question of sanctions. 1. and depending on the wording in the agreement. To the extent that they contain certain limited commitments on labour. 3. 51 The FTAs recently concluded between the United States. and (b) a complaining Party that considers it is not practicable or effective to suspend benefits in the same sector or sectors may suspend benefits in other sectors. Korea and Panama contain detailed chapters on labour. do not establish formal litigation procedures. most agreements. 2. 4. Except for the standard safeguard provisions (‘emergency actions’) and/or a reference to the antidumping and countervailing measures in the WTO agreement.
and for ‘monetary sanctions’: 1. They would require extensive empirical research and case law information. For the time being. Many facets in the relationship between labour standards and trade agreements can only be outlined here. what happens if domestic labour standards are waived for a specific FDI project. Any suspension of benefits must be no greater than the amount sufficient to collect the ‘monetary enforcement assessment’ imposed under Article 39.The NAALC foresees two in-built limitations for both ‘suspensions’ of trade concessions. and all ‘monetary enforcement assessments’ (no greater than . quite a few questions remain.4 by an arbitral panel (Art. or a possible source of conflicts making manufacturers subject to different labour standards for different export markets? 52 (Annex 39. or for exports to a third party? Are the commitments by one country under different RTAs just a problem of coherence.” 38 . For instance.007 per cent of total trade in goods between the Parties) would be reinvested in technical co-operation activities52.3) “All monetary enforcement assessments shall be paid in the currency of the Party complained against into a fund established in the name of the Commission by the Council and shall be expended at the direction of the Council to improve or enhance the labor law enforcement in the Party complained against. 2.41 NAALC). consistent with its law.
Besides. then the wording of type 1 and type 2 references mentioned above. We have found that countries with a higher share of trade within RTAs are characterized by lower levels of labour protection. Our analysis.6. The NAALC and the more recent US treaties as well as the recent EU-CARIFORUM Agreement also contain procedures that provide for public participation related to issues of labour law enforcement. ranging from the difficulties to prove that a lowering of domestic labour standards has occurred as a result of a RTA to evaluating the effect of such policy changes on trade flows. 39 . but our findings could be interpreted as evidence for a regulatory chilling effect. and in particular on the enforceability of RTA provisions related to domestic labour market regulation may be a worthwhile investment. only the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation. suggests that on the basis of the current design of regional trade agreements. like references to the ILO Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. In the case of low income countries we did not find any evidence for a lowering of labour protection. Those provisions appear in addition or in lieu of references to international labour standards. If labour provisions are included in RTAs to impede that increased regional trade leads to ‘regulatory chilling’ or ‘race to the bottom ‘effects. We have distinguished three types of references: (i) commitments to strive to improve domestic standards (ii) commitments not to lower existing domestic standards (iii) commitments to actually implement existing domestic standards. In the econometric work presented in this paper we asked the question whether type-1 or type-2 references to domestic labour provisions can be justified on economic grounds. We do this by testing whether regional trade is systematically associated with a lowering of domestic labour standards or with a regulatory chilling effect. trade is positively or not at all correlated with labour protection. It also raises the question whether ‘commitments to strive to achieve higher standards’ can be enforced in the case of low income countries. This leads to the question on the enforceability of existing provisions. In particular. the question arises whether ’commitments not to lower existing standards’ are enforceable if the country lowering its standards is a high income country. such provisions are unlikely to have a bite. In middle-income countries. allows the use of dispute settlement procedures and even of certain (limited) sanctions related to infringements of specific labour provisions. it is regional trade among rich countries that appears to be an important driver behind this finding. We see in the procedures related to public participation opportunities for ensuring adherence to or even improving labour standards. The challenges are multiple. a NAFTA-side agreement. The findings in our paper suggest that further analysis on actual use. instead. Among the WTO-notified RTAs in force. however. Ongoing work in international institutions and academia on measuring the trade effects of non-tariff barriers could be very instructive for overcoming the latter challenge. rather literally reflects such objectives. but that this is only the case for high income countries. The NAALC contains references to commitments to strive to improve domestic labour standards but no binding commitments not to lower existing domestic standards. Conclusions This discussion has shown that an increasing number of RTAs contain labour provisions making reference to domestic labour standards.
Netherlands New Zealand Norway Portugal Singapore Spain Sweden Switzerland United Kingdom United States Albania Algeria Argentina Azerbaijan Belarus Bolivia Brazil Bulgaria Chile China Colombia Costa Rica Czech Republic Dominican Republic Egypt El Salvador Estonia Georgia Guatemala Hungary Indonesia Country coverage of data set Middle income Jamaica Jordan Kazakhstan Latvia Lithuania Malaysia Mexico Morocco Paraguay Peru Philippines Poland Russian Federation South Africa Sri Lanka Thailand Tunisia Turkey Ukraine Uruguay Venezuela Low Income Bangladesh Burkina Faso Cameroon Cote d’Ivoire Ethiopia Ghana India Kenya Kyrgyz Republic Madagascar Mozambique Nepal Nicaragua Nigeria Pakistan Senegal Tanzania Uganda Uzbekistan Vietnam Zimbabwe 41 . Rep. High income Australia Austria Belgium Canada Denmark Finland France Germany Greece Israel Italy Korea.Appendices Table A1.
712 0.000 2.709 0.000 -0. Dev.366 N = 952 n = 73 T-bar = 13. Variable Notice period after 9 months Mean and standard deviation decomposition for the dependent variables Mean overall between within 0.831 N = 968 n = 74 T-bar = 13.508 0.000 0.000 -0.000 3.000 -0.933 25.752 0.216 0.044 0.000 0.084 0.654 8.315 0.872 Std.328 Max 3.387 9.649 0.08 Severance pay after 4 years overall between within 2.698 0.756 0.000 0.000 -0.117 0.756 0.054 N = 968 n = 74 T-bar = 13.660 0.032 0.500 3.454 N = 968 n = 74 T-bar = 13.000 0.04 Gross replacement ratio after 2 years overall between within 0.883 1.000 3.065 0.215 2.491 N = 968 n = 74 T-bar = 13.423 3.062 0.000 -0.000 0.000 2.000 -1.08 Notice period after 4 years overall between within 1.439 9.780 0.586 Observations N = 968 n = 74 T-bar = 13.150 0.725 1.209 0.534 N = 952 n = 73 T-bar = 13.235 0.000 -0.577 N = 968 n = 74 T-bar = 13.226 0.08 Severance pay after 20 years overall between within 8.000 0.166 0.725 0.041 46.000 0.233 Min 0.692 6.367 9.509 16.555 0.833 44.056 0.183 2.08 Gross replacement ratio after 1 year overall between within 0. 0.000 2.619 2.Table A2.000 0.08 Severance pay after 9 months overall between within 0.519 0.000 11.000 -3.04 42 .367 4.500 0.08 Notice period after 20 years overall between within 1.209 0.150 3.
Table A3. with 1 = highest degree and 7 = lowest Chief Executive Years in Office Combined Polity Score of democracy(Polity IV) 43 . Data Sources Variable Source FRDB Database on Structural Reform FRDB Database on Structural Reform FRDB Database on Structural Reform World Development Indicators World Trade Organization United Nations Comtrade World Development Indicators World Development Indicators Freedom House Freedom House Database of Political Institutions 2009. Philip Keefer. World Bank Integrated Network for Societal Conflict Research Notice period Severance pay Unemployment benefit Real GDP per capita RTA Trade (export and import) Employment in industry (% of total employment) Manufacturing valued-added (% GDP) Political rights index on a 1-to-7 scale. with 1 = highest degree and 7 = lowest Civil liberties index on a 1-to-7 scale.
648 (0.002) 0.073 (0.360* (0.078*** (0.052) 0.020) -0.018*** (0.074) 1.074*** (0.379 (0.018) 0.076*** (0.130* (0.294) -0.704) 0.499) 0.359) -0.001 (0.252) 0.017*** (0.144*** (0.043** (0.070*** (0.512) -0.316) -0.027) 0.))2t-1 ln (Industrial Employment)t-1 ln (Manufacturing VA/GDP) t-1 Political controls Political Rightst-1 Civil Rights t-1 Years of Officet-1 Democracyt-1 Country dummies Africa Asia North America South America Middle East Western Europe Scandinavian Countries Former Soviet Union -0.155) -0.084*** (0.212) -0.361*** (0.472) -0.147) -0.002) 0.071) 1.029) 0.c.419 (0.002) 0.018) 0.578*** (0.)t-1 (ln (GDP p.284 (0.559) -0.075) -0.005) 0.Table A4.719*** (0. Regional trade and notice period after 9 months Dependent variable: Notice period after 9 months (1) Fixed Effects (2) Random Effects (3) Random Effects Regional trade flows RTAs*Importst-1 Economic controls ln (GDP p.367** (0.005) 0.041** (0.018) 0.c.197 (0.149) 44 .005) 1.026) 0.051) 0.050) 0.001 (0.121 (0.404*** (0.366) 0.831*** (0.129 (0.019) 0 (0.078*** (0.081 (0.018*** (0.375** (0.097* (0.043** (0.020) -0.
727*** (2.304) 0.987*** (0.292 (0.14 74 74 74 -5.206) 968 (2) Random Effects (3) Random Effects 0.809*** (2.206*** (2. Time effects included.710) 968 0. * Statistical significance at the 10% level ** Statistical significance at the 5% level *** Statistical significance at the 1% level 45 .522) 968 Note: robust standard errors in parentheses.355) -7.Dependent variable: Notice period after 9 months (1) Fixed Effects Middle Income Low Income Constant Observations R-squared Number of id -7.
134* (0.044 (0.132) 46 .483) -0.261) 0.071 (0.033 (0.019) 0.584 (0.048 (0.011** (0.549) -0.002) 0.095*** (0.052) 0.049) 0.029 (0.797*** (0.020) -0.084*** (0.377) 0.079 (0.073) 1.001 (0.076) 1.020) -0.665** (0.136) -0.550*** (0.259) -0.500) -0.515) -0.083*** (0.))2t-1 ln (Industrial Employment)t-1 ln (Manufacturing VA/GDP) t-1 Political controls Political Rightst-1 Civil Rights t-1 Years of Officet-1 Democracyt-1 Country dummies Africa Asia North America South America Middle East Western Europe Scandinavian Countries Former Soviet Union -0.031* (0.085*** (0.132) -0.002) 0.002) 0.001 (0.018) 0.135* (0.001 (0.012** (0.005) 1.026) 0.018) 0.c.375) -1.012** (0.005) 0.556) -0.082*** (0.020) -0.005) 0.052) 0.652 (0.077) -0.312) -0.726*** (0.263 (0.605* (0.111*** (0.027) 0.111 (0. Regional trade and notice periods after 4 years Dependent variable: Notice period after 4 years (1) Fixed Effects (2) Random Effects (3) Random Effects Regional trade flows RTAs*Importst-1 Economic controls ln (GDP p.Table A5.c.133* (0.339) -0.091*** (0.028 (0.746 (0.034 (0.029) 0.)t-1 (ln (GDP p.
316) 0. * Statistical significance at the 10% level ** Statistical significance at the 5% level *** Statistical significance at the 1% level 47 .376) -6.693) -6.Dependent variable: Notice period after 4 years (1) Fixed Effects Middle Income Low Income Constant -7. Time effects included.263) (2) Random Effects (3) Random Effects 0.155 74 968 968 74 74 Note: robust standard errors in parentheses.526*** (2.665* (3.167 (0.379*** (2.535) Observations R-squared Number of id 968 0.985*** (2.
023) 0.155 (0.094) 2.013 (0.142) 48 .721 (0.027 (0.768* (0.033) -0.004 (0.025) 0.025) 0.565) -1.060) 0.635) -0.012** (0.026 (0.Table A6.002 (0.010* (0.765) 2.423*** (0.002 (0.057) 0.006) 2.909** (0.003) 0.094*** (0.145) 0.003) 0.059) 0.118*** (0.590) -0.001 (0.144) 0.097) 2.011* (0.096*** (0.122 (0.096*** (0.117 (0.c.15 (0.)t-1 (ln (GDP p.828) -0.697*** (0.195 (0.453*** (0.227 (0.035) -0.096) 0.006) 0.138*** (0.003) 0.514) -1.022) 0.643* (0.131 (0.002 (0.604) -0.))2t-1 ln (Industrial Employment)t-1 ln (Manufacturing VA/GDP) t-1 Political controls Political Rightst-1 Civil Rights t-1 Years of Officet-1 Democracyt-1 Country dummies Africa Asia North America South America Middle East Western Europe Scandinavian Countries Former Soviet Union -0.253*** (0.c.028 (0.023) 0. Regional trade and notice periods after 20 years Dependent variable: Notice period after 20 years (1) Fixed Effects (2) Random Effects (3) Random Effects Regional trade flows RTAs*Importst-1 Economic controls ln (GDP p.368) 0.449) -1.062* (0.262*** (0.033) -0.988) 1.136*** (0.025) 0.006) 0.470) -0.
116 74 968 968 74 74 Note: robust standard errors in parentheses. Time effects included.708) (2) Random Effects (3) Random Effects -0.863) Observations R-squared Number of id 968 0. * Statistical significance at the 10% level ** Statistical significance at the 5% level *** Statistical significance at the 1% level 49 .202*** (2.Dependent variable: Notice period after 20 years (1) Fixed Effects Middle Income Low Income Constant -9.969*** (2.493) 0.984) -9.535) -8.299*** (2.238 (0.212 (0.
009** (0.021) -0.027 (0.316*** (0.086) -1.339 (0.009** (0.11 (0.062) 0.031 (0.106) 50 .))2t-1 ln (Industrial Employment)t-1 ln (Manufacturing VA/GDP) t-1 Political controls Political Rightst-1 Civil Rights t-1 Years of Officet-1 Democracyt-1 Country dummies Africa Asia North America South America Middle East Western Europe Scandinavian Countries Former Soviet Union 0.021) -0.024) 0.087) -1.002 (0.032 (0.066) 0.107) 0.261) 0.435) 0.025) 0.228) 0.301) -0.Table A7.125 (0.002 (0.020) 0.002) 0.433) 0.014 (0.002) 0.343) -0.021) -0.078*** (0.c.)t-1 (ln (GDP p.404*** (0.868*** (0.074*** (0.084) 0.023) 0.271) 0.327*** (0.002 (0.c.015 (0.020) 0.008** (0.205) 1.002) 0.016 (0.102) 0.756*** (0.004) -1.050*** (0.317*** (0.311*** (0.061*** (0.370) 0.004) -0.014 (0.061*** (0.062) 0.092*** (0.279) 0.060*** (0.15 (0.018 (0. Regional trade and severance pay after 9 months Dependent variable: Severance pay after 9 months (1) Fixed Effects (2) Random Effects (3) Random Effects Regional trade flows RTAs*Importst-1 Economic controls ln (GDP p.002 (0.021) 0.062*** (0.406) 0.004) -0.007 (0.
041) 5.099 74 968 968 74 74 Note: robust standard errors in parentheses.082*** (2.864*** (0. * Statistical significance at the 10% level ** Statistical significance at the 5% level *** Statistical significance at the 1% level 51 .043) Observations R-squared Number of id 968 0. Time effects included.920) (2) Random Effects (3) Random Effects 0.533 (0.224) 0.802*** (2.Dependent variable: Severance pay after 9 months (1) Fixed Effects Middle Income Low Income Constant 7.330) 5.824*** (1.
200) 0.051) 0.233 (0.127*** (0.622) 0.096 (0.046) -0.508** (0.010) -0.132*** (0.163 (0.040) -0.c.495 (0.650) -0.004*** (0.202 (0.342*** (0.))2t-1 ln (Industrial Employment)t-1 ln (Manufacturing VA/GDP) t-1 Political controls Political Rightst-1 Civil Rights t-1 Years of Officet-1 Democracyt-1 Country dummies Africa Asia North America South America Middle East Western Europe Scandinavian Countries Former Soviet Union 0.198) -0.497** (0.155 (0.647 (1.003 (0.Table A8.205) -0.005) 0.009* (0.02 (0.050) 0.053) 0.403) 2.669) -0.307) -0.056 (0.549*** (0.c.236* (0.105) 0.15 (0.396) -0.007 (0.005) 0.313) -0.025** (0.012*** (0.173 (0.689) -0.)t-1 (ln (GDP p.650) 0.110) 0.010) -0.307) 52 .048) -0.024** (0.007 (0.010) -0.213) 1.574) 3.744 (0.005) 0.045) -0.008* (0.042) -0.501) 1.066* (0.007 (0. Regional trade and severance pay after 4 years Dependent variable: Severance pay after 4 years (1) Fixed Effects (2) Random Effects (3) Random Effects Regional trade flows RTAs*Importst-1 Economic controls ln (GDP p.038) -0.003 (0.098 (0.872) 0.136) 0.025** (0.129*** (0.391 (0.
094 74 968 968 74 74 Note: robust standard errors in parentheses.492 (3.147) (2) Random Effects (3) Random Effects 0.060) 0.108** (3.784 (0.237) Observations R-squared Number of id 968 0.Dependent variable: Severance pay after 4 years (1) Fixed Effects Middle Income Low Income Constant 6. Time effects included.221 (0.799) 2.653) -0.661 (3. * Statistical significance at the 10% level ** Statistical significance at the 5% level *** Statistical significance at the 1% level 53 .
222) -0.795) 8.762*** (0.062) 0.161) -0.112 (0.489) 15.198*** (0.347*** (0.323 (0.309*** (3.105) 8.c.934** (3.734 (2.454) -0.196*** (0.971*** (3.181) -1.943) 7.293** (1.326** (0.344** (0.32 (0.026) 0.598) 2.09 (1.051) 6.814) -3.856) 11.219) -0.096*** (0.205) -0.)t-1 (ln (GDP p.165) -0.442) 54 .084** (1.509) 0.216) -0.025) 0.450) -0.040*** (1.555) 0.009 (0.524) -2.584*** (0.671** (2.613*** (2.665* (1.138** (0.196*** (0.200) -1.463) 0. Regional trade and severance pay after 20 years Dependent variable: Severance pay after 20 years (1) Fixed Effects (2) Random Effects (3) Random Effects Regional trade flows RTAs*Importst-1 Economic controls ln (GDP p.182) -1.303 (0.424) -3.))2t-1 ln (Industrial Employment)t-1 ln (Manufacturing VA/GDP) t-1 Political controls Political Rightst-1 Civil Rights t-1 Years of Officet-1 Democracyt-1 Country dummies Africa Asia North America South America Middle East Western Europe Scandinavian Countries Former Soviet Union -0.092*** (0.116) -0.097*** (0.207*** (0.529*** (3.308* (0.534) -0.061) 7.934 (2.191) 10.c.Table A9.063) 0.033 (0.630*** (0.984** (5.025) 0.160) -0.
233) Observations R-squared Number of id 968 0.821) -37.275) (2) Random Effects (3) Random Effects 0.667) -32. * Statistical significance at the 10% level ** Statistical significance at the 5% level *** Statistical significance at the 1% level 55 . Time effects included.682** (16.66 (15.675) -0.754 (3.052 (2.351** (15.218 74 968 968 74 74 Note: robust standard errors in parentheses.Dependent variable: Severance pay after 20 years (1) Fixed Effects Middle Income Low Income Constant -18.
252*** (0.095) -0.017) 0.031 (0.006) 0.013 (0.039) -0.005) 0 (0.003 (0.038 (0.012 (0.197* (0.038) 56 .003 (0.c.005) 0 (0.087** (0.017) -0.087** (0.c.001 (0.052*** (0.000) -0.005) 0 (0.005) 0 (0.108) -0.104) 0 (0.032 (0.063** (0.005) 0 (0.))2t-1 ln (Industrial Employment)t-1 ln (Manufacturing VA/GDP) t-1 Political controls Political Rightst-1 Civil Rights t-1 Years of Officet-1 Democracyt-1 Country dummies Africa Asia North America South America Middle East Western Europe Scandinavian Countries Former Soviet Union -0.005 (0.042** (0.001) -0.024 (0.068 (0.)t-1 (ln (GDP p.094) -0.003 (0.001 (0.103*** (0.168 (0.111) -0.012) -0.105) 0.004 (0.010) -0.001) -0.Table A10.005) 0 (0.094 (0.131) -0.094) -0.006) 0.000) -0.011) -0.001 (0.037) -0.003 (0.017) 0.000) -0.252*** (0.108) -0.113) 0.071 (0.097) 0.001) -0.006) 0. Regional trade and gross replacement ratio after 1 year Dependent variable: Gross replacement ratio after 1 year (1) Fixed Effects (2) Random Effects (3) Random Effects Regional trade flows RTAs*Importst-1 Economic controls ln (GDP p.
475) -0.183** (0.425) (2) Random Effects (3) Random Effects -0.379 (0.Dependent variable: Gross replacement ratio after 1 year (1) Fixed Effects Middle Income Low Income Constant 0.091 (0.074) 0. Time effects included.061) -0.088 73 952 952 73 73 Note: robust standard errors in parentheses. * Statistical significance at the 10% level ** Statistical significance at the 5% level *** Statistical significance at the 1% level 57 .083 (0.032 (0.488) Observations R-squared Number of id 952 0.
014) -0.000) -0.002) 0.096** (0.003) 0 (0.001 (0.116) -0.002) 0 (0.001 (0.003) -0. Regional trade and gross replacement ratio after 2 years Dependent variable: Gross replacement ratio after 2 years (1) Fixed Effects (2) Random Effects (3) Random Effects Regional trade flows RTAs*Importst-1 Economic controls ln (GDP p.007) 0.006 (0.007) 0.061*** (0.002 (0.051*** (0.146 (0.238* (0.026) 0.007) 0.026) -0.007) -0.027) -0.011 (0.012* (0.401*** (0.002) -0.045) 0.001* (0.009 (0.012 (0.007) -0.)t-1 (ln (GDP p.072) 0.015) 0.058*** (0.120) -0.000) -0.001 (0.014) 0.000* (0.000* (0.027) 0.017 (0.c.001) 0.026 (0.001** (0.c.))2t-1 ln (Industrial Employment)t-1 ln (Manufacturing VA/GDP) t-1 Political controls Political Rightst-1 Civil Rights t-1 Years of Officet-1 Democracyt-1 Country dummies Africa Asia North America South America Middle East Western Europe Scandinavian Countries Former Soviet Union 0.008) -0.005 (0.050* (0.007 (0.139) -0.012 (0.008 (0.001 (0.003) -0.024) 58 .050) 0.235* (0.Table A11.026) -0.018 (0.001) 0.035) -0.260*** (0.029) 0.001) 0 (0.000) -0.001 (0.
008 (0.657) -0.525) (2) Random Effects (3) Random Effects -0. * Statistical significance at the 10% level ** Statistical significance at the 5% level *** Statistical significance at the 1% level 59 .207** (0.553) Observations R-squared Number of id 952 0.051 73 952 952 73 73 Note: robust standard errors in parentheses.894* (0.012 (0.Dependent variable: Gross replacement ratio after 2 years (1) Fixed Effects Middle Income Low Income Constant -1.152* (0.035) -1. Time effects included.021) -0.
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