The issue of global labour standards has been at the forefront of both regional and multilateral trade negotiations over the past two decades, and will likely remain high on the agenda of future trade talks as North-South trade flows continue to increase. Labour interests in high-standards...

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...

The relative importance of migrant workers has been increasing in the world economy. Conscious of their growing numbers, the migrant-receiving and migrant sending countries have agreed to grant social security benefits to migrant workers and their families. To this end they have ratified or...

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...

This paper uses microdata from Brazilian vital statistics natality and mortality data between 2000 and 2010 to estimate the impact of in-utero exposure to local violence -measured by homicide rates- on birth outcomes. Focusing on small communities, where it is more plausible that local homicide...

Canonical human capital theories posit that education, by enhancing worker skills, reduces the likelihood that a worker will be laid-off during times of economic change. Yet, this has not been demonstrated causally. We link administrative education records from 1987 through 2002 to nationally...

Recent studies document that, in many cases, the schools that parents prefer over others do not improve student test scores. This could be because (a) parents cannot discern schools causal impacts, and/or (b) parents value schools that improve outcomes not well-measured by test scores. To shed...