Informalization, obfuscation and bilateral labor agreements

Theoretical Inquiries in Law 23 (2):113-146 (2022)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Researchers who have attempted to collect and compare bilateral labor agreements have encountered varying degrees of accessibility of information on these agreements. Why is it harder to find out information on some bilateral labor agreements than others? In this Article, we argue that it is more difficult to find information and agreements tend to be more informal when governments want to obscure what they are doing. Building on insights from the study of optimal obfuscation in trade policy and research on informal institutions in international politics, we argue that policymakers use more informal agreements and make it more difficult to find information on BLAs when they think they will be politically unpopular and are unlikely to be ratified. In contrast, leaders will be more likely to use formal agreements when they want to lock in a policy. Drawing on original quantitative data on the accessibility of information on bilateral labor agreements and Peters’ 2019 database on BLAs, the Article analyzes the accessibility of information on bilateral labor agreements and finds some support for our argument.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,616

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

The expanding universe of bilateral labor agreements.Bartosz Woda & Adam Chilton - 2022 - Theoretical Inquiries in Law 23 (2):1-64.
Obscurity and nonbindingness in the regulation of labor migration.Tamar Megiddo - 2022 - Theoretical Inquiries in Law 23 (2):95-112.
Are coerced agreements involuntary?Michael Philips - 1984 - Law and Philosophy 3 (1):133 - 145.

Analytics

Added to PP
2022-08-10

Downloads
8 (#1,138,679)

6 months
3 (#447,120)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references