Labor Relations Commons^™

Dualism In The Labor Market: A Perspective On The Lewis Model After Half A Century, Gary S. Fields

Gary S Fields

This paper asks how the Lewis model might be viewed from the perspective of economic science half a century later. Many of the core propositions remain intact, some might be amplified, and a small number might be revised.

Household Income Dynamics: A Four Country Story, Gary S. Fields, Paul L. Cichello, Samuel Freije, Marta Menéndez, David Newhouse

Gary S Fields

[Excerpt] In this paper, we analyse the dynamics of household per capita incomes using longitudinal data from Indonesia, South Africa, Spain and Venezuela. We find that in all four countries reported initial income and job changes of the head are consistently the most important variables in accounting for income changes, overall and for initially poor households. We also find that changes in income are more important than changes in household size and that changes in labour earnings are more important than changes in other sources of household income.

The Microeconomics Of Changing Income Distribution In Malaysia, Gary S. Fields, Sergei Soares

Gary S Fields

[Excerpt] This study uses data from Malaysia's Household Income and Expenditure Surveys to quantify the importance of different factors in accounting for the changes in Malaysia's income distribution between 1984 and 1989 ("Period 1") and between 1989 and 1997 ("Period 2"). These particular years were chosen, because 1997 is the most recent available survey, 1984 is the earliest survey comparable to 1997, and 1989 is important for three reasons: 1. Income inequality fell until 1989 and rose thereafter. 2. Economic growth was slow in 1984-89 and fast in 1989-97. and 3. 1989 is the closest year to the beginning of …

Decent Work And Development Policies, Gary S. Fields

Gary S Fields

Welcoming the shift to outcomes which he perceives in the ILO's focus on decent work, the author explores the major issues thus raised. He discusses how to make the notion of decent work more precise in operational terms, and how to develop an integrated approach to economic and social policy in the decent work context, before formulating an empirical approach to assessing the effects of economic growth on decent work. Finally, he outlines a structure for the ILO's planned country reviews of progress towards decent work.

[Review Of Pay Without Performance: The Unfulfilled Promise Of Executive Compensation], Kevin F. Hallock

Kevin F Hallock

[Excerpt] Every once in a while someone comes out with an important book concerning corporate governance or executive compensation. Like Aldolf A. Berle and Gardiner C. Means's The Modern Corporation and Private Property (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1932) and Graef S. Crystal's In Search of Excess: The Overcompensation of American Executives (New York: W.W. Norton, 1991), Bebchuk and Fried's new book is thought-provoking and interesting. It is a very important book and should be read not just by those interested in executive pay or corporate governance but by anyone interested in how corporations work.

[Review Of Personnel Economics In Imperfect Labour Markets], Kevin F. Hallock

Kevin F Hallock

Excerpt] This book is an attempt to consolidate what we know about Personnel Economics by focusing on Personnel Economics in Imperfect Labor Markets. Even on the first page of the book, the author is clear about this mission. In particular he notes that "The view of personnel economics analyzed in this book is based on two key properties of... labour markets: labour markets are imperfect and jobs are associated to [sic] rents; labour market institutions interact with personnel policies. Notably, wages are partly set outside the firm-worker pair (minimum wages and collective agreements are widespread)" and "job termination policies are …

Ensuring A Decent Global Workplace: Labor Rights Belong In Trade Agreements, Lance A. Compa

Lance A Compa

[Excerpt] Linking workers' rights to international trade is an idea whose time has come and stayed, despite the best efforts of free trade ideologues to chase it away. In looming congressional debates about "fast track" negotiating authority, the Bush administration and Congress confront powerful demands from workers, trade unionists and a wider public for rules protecting human rights and labor rights, not just corporate investments, in trade agreements.

'Mapping Unions In The 'New Member States'' In Baldachinno, G., Trade Unions In Malta. Brussels, Etui, Pp.5-10., Kurt Vandaele

Kurt Vandaele

No abstract provided.

The Ghent-System, Temporary Unemployment And The Belgian Trade Unions Since The Economic Downturn, Kurt Vandaele

Kurt Vandaele

No abstract provided.

Book Reviews. Economic Adjustment And Political Transformation In Small States By Erik Jones, Kurt Vandaele

Kurt Vandaele

No abstract provided.

Evaluating The Extent And Nature Of 'Envelope Wages' In The European Union: A Geographical Analysis, Colin C. Williams

Colin C Williams

To evaluate the spatialities of the illegal wage practice where employers pay their declared employees both an official declared wage and an undeclared ‘envelope’ wage so as to avoid tax liabilities, a 2007 survey conducted in 27 European Union (EU) member states is reported. The finding is that 5% of employees received envelope wages which amount on average to some two-fifths of their wage packet. Revealing how, although heavily concentrated in a small group of East-Central European nations, this wage practice is nonetheless ubiquitous, the paper concludes by discussing how this practice might be tackled.

Measures To Tackle Undeclared Work In 27 European Countries, Colin C. Williams

Colin C Williams

Review of range and type of policy measures used for tackling undeclared work in 27 European Union member states and an evaluation fo their transferability to other nations, sectors and/or occupations

Repaying Favours: Unravelling The Nature Of Community Exchnage In An English Locality, Colin C. Williams

Colin C Williams

A recurring assumption in community development has been that when material support is provided on a one-to-one basis to the extended family or social and neighbourhood networks, such favours are repaid by offering help in return rather than money. Reporting a study of the community exchanges of 120 households in an English locality, however, the finding is that well over one-third of these were repaid using money. The outcome is a call for the community development literature to recognise and respond to the existence of this sphere of ‘paid favours’ which demonstrates how monetary transactions can be neither market-like nor …

Linkages Between Industrialization Strategies And Industrial Relations/Human Resource Policies: Singapore, Malaysia, The Philippines, And India, Sarosh Kuruvilla

Sarosh Kuruvilla

The case studies of Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, and India presented in this paper support the author's contention that a country's industrialization strategy for economic development profoundly influences its industrial relations (IR) and human resources (HR) policy goals. The author finds that import substitution industrialization was associated with IR/HR policy goals of pluralism and stability, while a low-cost export-oriented industrialization strategy was associated with IR/HR policy goals of cost containment and union suppression. In countries that moved from a low-cost export-oriented strategy to a higher value added export-oriented strategy, the focus of IR/HR policy goals shifted from cost containment to …

Building And Construction Trades Unions: Are They Built To Win?, Jeff Grabelsky

Jeffrey Grabelsky

[Excerpt] The evidence of labor's declining power in the economic and political arenas is increasingly clear. Despite the tenacious efforts of talented leaders over the past ten years, the labor movement has still failed to turn the proverbial cornet. Some labor leaders now believe that a dramatic change in strategic direction may be necessary to revitalize labor's fortunes. The emerging debate about labor's future touches every sector of the movement. The building and construction trades are no exception.

How Much Should We Care About Changing Income Inequality In The Course Of Economic Growth?, Gary S. Fields

Gary S Fields

This paper asks how much we should care about changes in Lorenz curves and standard inequality measures when economic growth takes place. I conclude that these changes are of some importance but that other aspects of inequality and poverty are more important.

Re-Thinking The Future Of Work: Beyond Binary Hierarchies, Colin C. Williams

Colin C Williams

How will work be organised in the future? This paper reveals that although there are multiple stories about the future of work, a similar storyline is adopted across many of the competing visions. Most visions firstly squeeze all forms of work into one side or the other or some dichotomy and then proceed to temporally and/or normatively sequence the two sides of the dualism and finally label the resultant one-dimensional and linear trajectory as some -ism, -ation or post-somethingor-other. This paper evaluates critically such hierarchical binary narratives (e.g., the shift from informal to formal work, non-commodified to commodified work, localisation …

Tackling Undeclared Work In The European Union, Colin C. Williams

Colin C Williams

No abstract provided.

Beyond The Dichotomous Worlds Hypothesis: Towards A Plurality Of Corporate Governance Logics, Jordan Otten

Jordan Otten

The dichotomous worlds hypothesis holds that corporate governance systems worldwide are either based on the Anglo-American shareholder model or the Eurasian stakeholder model. We suggest a more fine-grained classification, based on five corporate governance logics –socially constructed, historical patterns of material practices, assumptions, values, beliefs, and rules by which all parties involved in economic productive activities structure their material interdependencies and provide meaning to the social reality of corporate life. These logics are discovered through a content analysis of the corporate governance reform codes of 38 countries.

Theories On Executive Pay: A Literature Overview And Critical Assessment, Jordan Otten

Jordan Otten

Executive pay is a major issue in the corporate governance debate. As well in practice as in theory debate still exists how executive pay levels and structures can be explained. This paper provides an overview of 16 theories that have been used in the literature to explain the phenomenon. The theories can be classified into three types of approaches; 1) the value approach; 2) the agency approach; and 3) the symbolic approach. A critical assessment of the theories shows that the dominant use in the literature of the perfect contracting approach of agency theory neglects: 1) the socially determined symbolic …

Small Businesses In The Informal Economy: The Evidence Base, Colin C. Williams

Colin C Williams

No abstract provided.

Small Businesses In The Informal Economy, Colin C. Williams

Colin C Williams

No abstract provided.

Rights Of Inequality: Rawlsian Justice, Equal Opportunity, And The Status Of The Family, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

Is the family subject to principles of justice? In A Theory of Justice, John Rawls includes the (monogamous) family along with the market and the government as among the "basic institutions of society" to which principles of justice apply. Justice, he famously insists, is primary in politics as truth is in science: the only excuse for tolerating injustice is that no lesser injustice is possible. The point of the present paper is that Rawls doesn't actually mean this. When it comes to the family, and in particular its impact on fair equal opportunity (the first part of the the Difference …

Relativism, Reflective Equilibrium, And Justice, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

THIS PAPER IS THE CO-WINNER OF THE FRED BERGER PRIZE IN PHILOSOPHY OF LAW FOR THE 1999 AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE BEST PUBLISHED PAPER IN THE PREVIOUS TWO YEARS.

The conflict between liberal legal theory and critical legal studies (CLS) is often framed as a matter of whether there is a theory of justice that the law should embody which all rational people could or must accept. In a divided society, the CLS critique of this view is overwhelming: there is no such justice that can command universal assent. But the liberal critique of CLS, that it degenerates into …

An Appraisal Of Local Exchange And Trading Systems In The United Kingdom, Colin C. Williams

Colin C Williams

What's Wrong With Exploitation?, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

Abstract: Marx thinks that capitalism is exploitative, and that is a major basis for his objections to it. But what's wrong with exploitation, as Marx sees it? (The paper is exegetical in character: my object is to understand what Marx believed,) The received view, held by Norman Geras, G.A. Cohen, and others, is that Marx thought that capitalism was unjust, because in the crudest sense, capitalists robbed labor of property that was rightfully the workers' because the workers and not the capitalists produced it. This view depends on a Labor Theory of Property (LTP), that property rights are based ultimately …

In Defence Of Exploitation, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

The concept of exploitation is thought to be central to Marx's Critique of capitalism. John Roemer, an analytical (then-) Marxist economist now at Yale, attacked this idea in a series of papers and books in the 1970s-1990s, arguing that Marxists should be concerned with inequality rather than exploitation -- with distribution rather than production, precisely the opposite of what Marx urged in The Critique of the Gotha Progam.

This paper expounds and criticizes Roemer's objections and his alternative inequality based theory of exploitation, while accepting some of his criticisms. It may be viewed as a companion paper to my What's …

Functional Explanation And Metaphysical Individualism, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

A number of (present or former) analytical Marxists, such as Jon Elster, have argued that functional explanation has almost no place in the social sciences. (Although the discussion is framed in terms of a debate among analytical Marxists, the point is quite general, and Marxism is used for illustrative purposes.) Functional explanation accounts for what is to be explained by reference to its function; thus, sighted organism have eyes because eyes enable them to see. Elster and other critics of functional explanation argue that this pattern of explanation is inconsistent with "methodological individualism," the idea, as they understand it, that …

From Libertarianism To Egalitarianism, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

A standard natural rights argument for libertarianism is based on the labor theory of property: the idea that I own my self and my labor, and so if I "mix" my own labor with something previously unowned or to which I have a have a right, I come to own the thing with which I have mixed by labor. This initially intuitively attractive idea is at the basis of the theories of property and the role of government of John Locke and Robert Nozick. Locke saw and Nozick agreed that fairness to others requires a proviso: that I leave "enough …