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Lobel, Orly --- "National Regulation in a Global Economy: New Governance Approaches to 21st Century Work Law" [2009] ELECD 424; in Dau-Schmidt, G. Kenneth; Harris, D. Seth; Lobel, Orly (eds), "Labor and Employment Law and Economics" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2009)

Book Title: Labor and Employment Law and Economics

Editor(s): Dau-Schmidt, G. Kenneth; Harris, D. Seth; Lobel, Orly

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847207296

Section: Chapter 22

Section Title: National Regulation in a Global Economy: New Governance Approaches to 21st Century Work Law

Author(s): Lobel, Orly

Number of pages: 36

Extract:

22 National regulation in a global economy:
new governance approaches to 21st
century work law
Orly Lobel


1 Introduction
Laws governing employment relations have proliferated in the past few
decades. With labor unions in decline, countries have increasingly turned
to government regulation in a broad range of areas, including antidiscrimi-
nation, safety and health, employee privacy, wage and hour, speech rights,
and leave and benefit laws. This chapter addresses government regulation
of the labor market in the context of a global economy. While it is difficult
to designate the boundaries of the topic, this chapter will aim to provide a
broad overview of the challenges and promises of government regulation
in the 21st century, with a particular emphasis on the need to maintain
competitiveness in an era of globalization.
The chapter first considers the `race to the bottom' analysis, which pre-
dicts that a nation will experience depressed compensation and downward
pressures on its regulatory system if the system provides comparatively high
protections. It identifies theoretical and empirical findings both support-
ing and refuting predictions of a race to the bottom and portrays a more
complex picture of the effects of globalization on national regulation.
The chapter then describes the declining but continuing role of the state
in the global economy. Mandatory labor market regulation is a common
response to market failure. At the same time, traditional regulation is
itself prone to a range of inefficiencies and failures. Given the continuing
need for government intervention, the limits of traditional command-
...