Flexible Bureaucracies in Labor Market Regulation
Name
Flexible-Bureaucracies-in-Labor-Market-Regulation-Labor-Law-9-10.pdf
Description
This copy (even though mentions a workshop) is the most recent pre-publication version for the book.
Size
97.53 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
bb0f6cd282435d861266df325b26a25a
Author(s)
Piore, Michael J.
Date Issued
January 2011
Journal
Idea of Labour Law [edited book]
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Citation
Piore, Michael J. "Flexible Bureaucracies in Labor Market Regulation." Chapter 23 in: The Idea of Labour Law, edited by Guy Davidov and Brian Langille, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. 456 p.
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
This paper compares and contrasts the U.S. and French systems of labor market regulation. The U.S. system is specialized: Regulating authority is dispersed among a host of different agencies each with a relatively narrow jurisdiction, and as a result with responsibility for a very limited domain. Authority is further divided between the federal and the state governments. The French system is a unified or general system: A single agency is responsible for the enforcement of the whole labor code. As a result, the French system is a street-level bureaucracy in which considerable power and authority rests with the line agents, the work inspectors themselves. The structure of the system (quite paradoxically in the light of the centralization generally attributed to the French state) gives the inspectors virtually complete autonomy in the geographic area to which they are assigned. As a result, and contrary to the contrast generally drawn between civil law and common law countries, at least in the literature of economics, the French system is considerably more flexible and able to adjust to variations in economic and social conditions across the territory but also over time than is the U.S. system. The contrast is of broader importance because the French system was adopted by Spain (and Italy) and from there spread to Latin America, where the issue of labor standards enforcement has become central to bilateral trade treaties with the United States. The paper goes on to discuss the various managerial issues posed by the two systems and the problems of reconciling their contrasting dynamics in a unified global trading regime.
Description
URL is to book. Chapter listed in TOC
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Economics
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Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199693610.do#.UJqNQmfIY5s
