The factors responsible for the lacklustre performance India's manufacturing are well identified in contemporary literature. The important ones are absence of world class infrastructure, complex system of internal taxation, an unpredictable taxation environment, and regulations relating to land...

One particularly significant piece of labour legislation in India is the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970 (CLA,1970), which regulates labour hired by firms through the offices of a labour contractor - such labour being referred to as 'contract' labour in India. This paper...

The paper begins with a discussion of Indian labour law and the increasing use of "contract labour" in Indian formal manufacturing. We question the widespread perception that employment of contract labour provides flexibility to employers in terms of adjustment in response to demand and...

An important segment of labour regulations concerns the protection aspects of social security. These regulations provide safety nets or fall back mechanisms to enable workers to cope with crises that affect households from time to time, such as illness, employment injury, death or old age. This...

How does enforcement of labor regulations shape the labor market effects of trade? Does the informal sector introduce greater de facto flexibility, reducing employment losses during bad times? To tackle these questions, we exploit local economic shocks generated by trade liberalization and...

In this paper, we undertake an evaluation of the laws governing wages in India, identify their shortcomings and offer suggestions for improvement. In doing so, we analyze the provisions in the relevant ILO Conventions and look at the laws and practice in selected developed and emerging...