We ask how globalization affects a government's incentives to set labor standards for its workers. In a stylized equilibrium model of global value chains, we find two contrasting results. First, each country chooses stricter labor standards with globalization than it would under autarky, because...

In a stylized model of multinational firms choosing host locations for their global value chains, host-country governments choose the strength of collective-bargaining rights that allow their workers to receive a share of the resulting quasi-rents. Each government must trade off the direct...