This paper estimates how compliance with national labor law and international labor standards within Jordan's garment exporting factories changed after the implementation of a transparency program that made compliance assessments publicly available. The estimation employs data from Better Work...

The rise of global supply chains over the last three decades intensified international attention to the conditions endured by workers in poor countries. Collapsed buildings, fires and death created an imperative to address poor conditions. Consumers, non-governmental organizations,...

This paper studies how a positive export shock - the sharp increase in garment-sector exports that began at the end of the Multifibre Arrangement (MFA) - spread through Bangladesh's labor markets. Although the end of the MFA was arguably exogenous to Bangladesh, we instrument export demand with...

This paper explores the link between the prevalence of violent conflicts and extremely low female labor force participation rates (FLFPR) in South Asia. We merge Labor Force Surveys (LFSs) from Bangladesh, Sri-Lanka, India, and Pakistan to the Global Terrorism Database (GTD) to estimate the...

This paper focuses on how the forces of globalisation, specifically the Multi-Fibre Arrangement (MFA), have affected women's wages in the apparel sector in developing countries. Using household and labour force surveys from Cambodia and Sri Lanka, we find large positive wage premiums and a...

A large and growing literature has identified several conditions, including exporting, that contribute to plant survival. A prevailing sentiment suggests that anti-sweatshop activity against plants in developing countries adds the risk of making survival more difficult by imposing external...

Working conditions in developing countries, such as those associated with the 2013 Rana Plaza collapse in Bangladesh, remain stubbornly low despite strict laws regulating hours, pay practices and occupational safety and health. Recent theoretic and empirical work suggests that norms and learning...

Neoclassical trade theory suggests that factor price convergence should follow increased commercial integration. Rising commercial integration and foreign direct investment followed the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement between the United States and Mexico. This paper evaluates the degree...

China's exports reduce wages in importing countries, but few studies have looked at competition in third party markets. We examine labor market outcomes in Mexico's apparel and textile sectors associated with U.S. apparel and textile imports from China. Using data on U.S. imports in conjunction...

Mexican wage inequality rose following Mexico's accession to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade/World Trade Organization in 1986. Since the mid-1990s, however, wage inequality has been falling. Since most trade models suggest that output prices can affect factor prices, this paper...