Globalization creates both opportunities and challenges for improving labor standards in the developing world. Multinational companies that coordinate global supply chains throughout the developing world are often implicated in scandals involving exploitative conditions in their suppliers. This has led firms, states, activist groups, and other civil society organizations to establish institutions to regulate global trade and improve labor standards.
This research project, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation, examines the effectiveness of these institutions and the conditions under which they lead to improvements in labor standards. It is organized around three main tracks:
- The impact of importing firms on the labor standards of developing country exporters
- The effectiveness of private regulation of labor standards
- The interaction between private regulation and labor standards provisions in preferential trade agreements