Labour law, development and poverty alleviation in low and middle-income countries

这项研究将审查劳动法改革对中低收入国家减轻贫困的贡献。自20世纪90年代初以来，世界银行和其他国际金融机构一直认为，发展中国家的劳动法应该更加灵活，以便在这些国家促进更加“商业友好”的环境。在某些情况下，解除管制的劳动法改革已经开始，作为接受世界银行财政援助的国家的一个条件。最近的研究表明，世界银行的方法低估了保护性劳动法通过鼓励企业对人力资本和技术升级的投资来刺激经济增长的作用。此外，集体谈判和社会保险等劳动法机构可以通过重新分配财富和保护社会上最不富裕的人免受工作场所危害以及与失业、疾病和老年有关的社会风险，在解决贫困问题方面发挥直接作用。与此同时，这些新出现的证据表明，劳工法规则必须适合发展中国家的情况，才能有效。从工业化国家移植过来的劳动法可能不适合新兴和发展中的劳动力市场，因为在这些市场中，只有一小部分劳动力有机会获得正规的有薪就业，或者私营部门企业在遵守劳工标准或通过增加对新技能和技术的投资来适应监管要求方面的能力有限。不适用于特定环境的劳动法可能产生反生产效果，增加非正式就业和临时工就业。因此，了解发展中国家和新兴市场劳动法在实践中发挥效力的先决条件是很重要的。本项目建议制定一个新的分析框架，以研究劳工法制度与中低收入国家的经济和政治环境之间的“契合”的性质。这项研究将采取一系列个案研究的形式，以处于大致相当发展阶段但体制、经济和政治特点不同的国家的配对比较为基础：布基纳法索和柬埔寨（它们在劳工法改革中财政条件的作用方面有不同的经验）；智利和南非（最近两国的政治周期呈现出不同的形式）；以及印度和中国（这两个国家的劳动法相对停滞，而最近的劳动法制度改革，都是在经济快速增长的同时进行的）。这些国家的经验将采用数量和质量相结合的研究方法加以研究，这样就可以更系统地评价所研究的不同情况下劳工法改革进程的性质。该项目的最终结果将是一个评价劳动法规则的分析模板，可以更广泛地用来评价它们对中低收入国家减轻贫穷的贡献。该模板将由研究小组与国际劳工组织官员合作，并在案例研究国家的政府、社会伙伴、全球非政府组织和民间社会组织等研究用户的积极参与下制定。该项目还将对了解法律和发展的正式、数量措施和更多质量指标在评价与减轻贫穷有关的政策和改革倡议方面可以发挥的作用作出根本贡献。

The research will examine the contribution of labour law reform to poverty alleviation in low and middle-income countries. Since the early 1990s, the World Bank and other international financial institutions have argued that labour laws in developing countries should be made more flexible, with a view to promoting a more 'business friendly' environment in those countries. In some cases, deregulatory labour law reforms have been inititated as a condition of countries receiving financial aid from the World Bank. Recent research suggests that the World Bank's approach understates the role that protective labour laws can play in stimulating economic growth by encouraging investment in human capital and technological upgrading by firms. In addition, labour law institutions such as collective bargaining and social insurance can play a direct role in addressing poverty by redistributing wealth and protecting the least well off in society against workplace hazards and social risks associated with unemployment, sickness and old age. At the same time, this emerging body of evidence suggests that, in order to be effective, labour law rules must be appropriate for developing country contexts. Labour laws which are transplanted from industrialised countries may be inappropriate for emerging and developing labour markets in which only a small part of the labour force has access to regular, waged employment, or where private sector enterprises have limited capacity to comply with labour standards or to adapt to regulatory requirements by increasing their investment in new skills and technologies. Labour laws which do not bed down in a given environment may have the counter-productive effect of increasing informality and casualisation of employment. Thus it is important to have an understanding of the preconditions for the effectiveness of labour laws in practice in developing and emerging markets. The present project proposes to develop a new analytical framework for studying the nature of the 'fit' between labour law institutions and the economic and political context of low and middle income countries. The research will take the form of a series of case studies, based on paired comparisons of countries at roughly equivalent stages of development, but with different institutional, economic and political characteristics: Burkina Faso and Cambodia (which have different experiences of the role of financial conditionality in labour law reform); Chile and South Africa (where the political cycle has taken different forms in the recent past); and India and China (which offer contrasting cases of relative stasis in labour law versus recent reform of labour law institutions, taking place, in both cases, alongside rapid economic growth). The experiences of these countries will be studied using a mix of quantitative and qualitative research techniques, which will allow for a more systematic assessment of the nature of the labour law reform process in the different contexts being studied. The end result of the project will be an analytical template for the evaluation of labour law rules which can be used more widely to assess their contribution to poverty alleviation in low and middle income countries. The template will be developed by the research team in collaboration with officials from the ILO and with the active involvement of users of the research in government, the social partners, global NGOs, and civil society organisations in the case study countries. The project will also make a fundamental contribution to understanding the role that formal, quantitative measures and more qualitative indicators of law and development can play in evaluating policy and reform initiatives in relation to poverty alleviation.