States and the Political Economy of Unfree Labour

A growing body of academic and policy research seeks to understand and address the problem of contemporary unfree labour. In this article, we argue that this literature could be strengthened by a stronger conceptualization of, and more systematic attention towards, the role of national states. In particular, we argue that there is a need to move beyond simplistic conceptualisations of states as simple agents of regulation and criminal justice enforcement who respond to the problem of unfree labour, and to recognize the causal and multifaceted role that national states play in creating the conditions in which unfree labour can flourish. We propose a framework to understand and compare the ways in which national states shape the political economy of unfree labour. Focusing on the United States, we outline three arenas of governance in which national states have been particularly central to enabling the conditions for unfree labour: the regulation of labour mobility, labour market regulation, and business regulation. We conclude by reflecting on the comparative political economy research that will be required to understand the role of different states in shaping the conditions in which unfree labour thrives or is eliminated.     

Social Justice in Comparative Political Economy: Lessons from Habermas and the Contemporary German Case

This article critiques recent operationalisations of social justice theories in empirical research in comparative political economy from an epistemological entry point. It offers an alternative epistemic framework based on Habermas’s system and lifeworld distinction to reconcile normative theory with empirical research before developing a critical theory of social justice based on two principles: Nancy Fraser’s parity of participation and Hauke Brunkhorst’s notion that functional differentiation in systems cannot generate asymmetric moral standards. These principles are then operationalised for regimes of welfare capitalism before exploring the contemporary German labour market in these terms, drawing on original qualitative research. It demonstrates that parity of participation cannot be achieved when the moral duty to participate is asymmetrically applied. It concludes capitalism is inherently unjust in any variety due to the inequality of wealth and free movement of capital reinforcing the inequality of moral expectations characterising the lived experience of welfare-mediated labour markets. Therefore, accepting this inherent injustice and whether institutions of the welfare state exacerbate or mitigate it should be the central focus of future research on social justice in comparative political economy.     

The Political Economy of the Global Environment

Issues of the ‘global commons’ have secured a prominent place in environmental discourse. The temperature-regulating functions of the global atmosphere and radiation control functions of stratospheric ozone offer clear examples of true public goods. Other environmental assets, such as biodiversity and forests, are treated as if they are public goods, but in reality are complex mixtures of private goods, local public goods and global public goods. The approach to the provision and protection of these goods has tended to focus on the development of international agreements, such as those at the Rio de Janeiro ‘Earth Summit’ in 1992. But do these agreements contain the relevant incentives to conserve the global commons? Much depends on one's view of human nature. The Scottish economic tradition suggests that unless incentives focus on ‘self love’, as postulated by Hume and Smith, improvements will, at best, be marginal. A richer array of policy measures is obtained by analysing the potential for ‘global bargains’, trades that improve the environment whilst making each party better off. The souls of Hume and Smith surely approve recent developments in practical global bargains.     

Displacement Effects of Active Labour Market Policy: The Youth Labour Market in Finland

In 1994 the number of workers participating in active labour market programmes in Finland was 299,000. On average there where 125,000 workers in these programmes at any one time, the average length of participation in a programme being about 5 months. In relation to the 2.5 million-strong Finnish labour force, these figures are proportionally large. In 1994 the total expenditure on unemployment amounted to 6.7 per cent of GNP of which the share spent on active labour market programmes was about 25 per cent. The study investigates the displacement effects of active labour market programmes in the youth labour market in Finland. The two age groups analysed are 15-19-year-olds and 20-24-year-olds. The results, based on a VAR analysis of quarterly data from the period 1981.1-1995.2, suggest that the displacement effects of job-creation programmes may be substantial. The study cannot, however, provide any robust estimates of the likely size of such displacement effects on youth employment in Finland. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Labour Markets in China: A Study of the Structure and Evolution of Wages

This paper examines the development of labour markets and the evolution of a structure of wages in China, using household surveys for 1988, 1995, 2002 and 2007. It finds evidence of both provincial and sectoral segmentation in labour markets, with eastern regions and the state-controlled sector enjoying high wage premiums in the early reform period. During the reform, China has progressed slowly towards an integrated labour market with convergence in incomes between the rural non-agriculture sector and the urban market-based sector by 1995, when industry flourished in the rural areas. The wage gap between the rural non-agriculture sector and other sectors increased and the urban state-controlled sector remained segmented with respect to all other sectors up to 2002. However, the data from 2007 show there has been increasing sectoral and spatial integration.     

Measuring Labour Services: Quality‐Adjusting the Entry and Exit of Workers

Many statistical agencies use the sum of hours worked when measuring labour services. This implies that all workers provide work of equal quality. Various indices for adjusting for labour quality have been employed in a large body of literature. However, this literature has not yet addressed the issue of how to quality‐adjust the impact of workers entering and exiting the labour market. We outline a theoretical framework for dealing with quality adjustment of labour services caused by workers entering and exiting employment. To illustrate the theoretical framework, we use the case of Norway in the period 1997–2013. The impact on labour services due to our quality adjustment of net entry is found to be cyclical. While the adjustment for the quality of net entry amounts to about −0.3 percentage points annually during expansions, it is offset by about the same magnitude during contractions.     

建筑行业包工制：农村劳动力使斥与城市空间生产的制度逻辑

本文试图通过对中国建筑行业普遍存在的包工制——其固有特征、运行逻辑、兴盛原因——的分析,运用马克思主义语境下的劳动力的使用与再生产这一视角重述空间政治经济学在中国的地方性实践,探索城市空间生产的制度逻辑。作者认为,包工制的再次兴盛是农民工“拆分型的劳动力使用模式”在空间生产领域中的具体体现,通过包工制度,原本在户籍制度限制之下割裂的农村劳动力的使用与再生产被纳入一个更受限制的空间,它将再生产策略与中国空间和地理的不平等相结合,既满足了城市的发展需要,又满足了资本的弹性积累需要。然而,由此而来的危机所导致的社会冲突随着经济的高速发展愈演愈烈,这些危机终究难以通过将非正式用工普遍化的包工制度得到彻底解决,在城市空间发展和资本积累过程中保障社会和谐的根本力量在于相关制度法规的建立健全和贯彻执行以及城市对于农民工劳动力再生产的承担。     

住房功能新定位与中国住房改革的政治经济学分析

房子是用来住的,不是用来炒的是以习近平同志为核心的党中央在新时代对住房功能和房地产市场发展的新定位,蕴含着丰富的政治经济学原理。一是蕴含了对商品使用价值与交换价值二因素辩证法的深刻理解,有助于在实践中正确处理住房使用价值和交换价值的关系。二是明确了让住房需求成为拉动经济增长的长期良性动力,而不能将房地产作为短期刺激经济的手段。三是揭示了住房金融化在经济脱实向虚过程中的关键作用,有助于在实践中有效治理经济脱实向虚问题,促进金融服务实体经济。     

The Rise of Finance and the Decline of Organised Labour in the Advanced Capitalist Countries

The goal of this article is to provide a comprehensive evaluation of the impacts of finance and corporate governance reforms on organised labour since 1980. The argument is made that contemporary institutional and ‘Varieties of Capitalism’ as well as ‘Varieties of Unionism’ perspectives on labour market reform have overstated the power of states, institutions and organised interests in deflecting global economic pressures. Drawing on a range of recent Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) statistics and qualitative studies, it is claimed that current developments in finance and corporate governance mark a fundamental break with post-war developments. Capital has reasserted its power over organised labour and labour markets not only in the US and UK, but throughout Western Europe as well. In assessing how far this reversal has gone, the article focuses on three key political economic changes: i) the rise in finance and adoption of corporate ‘shareholder’ systems; ii) the expansion of mergers and acquisitions and their negative effects on unionisation and manufacturing jobs; and iii) the effects of financial pressures and corporate reform on collective bargaining and wages. This is the first study to report on comparative changes and qualitative reforms to both finance and labour in 13 OECD countries between 1980 and 2005.     

The Regressive Recovery: Distribution,Inequality and State Power in Britain's Post-Crisis Political Economy

This article interrogates the underlying mechanisms at the heart of Britain's post-crisis political economy. We argue that the contemporary economic recovery has been characterised by a dynamic of ‘regressive redistribution’: a socially regressive dynamic of state-led economic restructuring that has worked through two axes at the centre of the recovery. The first axis, a monetary policy framework centred upon Quantitative Easing, has driven asset-price inflation to the benefit of the wealthiest asset holders. The second axis centres upon the politics of regressive labour market restructuring which has provoked widespread wage deflation. In combination, these two axes have been central to defining the contours of the Britain's post-crisis political economy paradigm: characterised by rising asset wealth for the few, and falling living standards alongside increasing economic insecurity for wage earners. The opportunity to change path from the trends of deepening inequality that defined the pre-crisis era has not been taken. Instead, the prevailing policy paradigm of the post-crisis period – discursively unified and sustained by David Cameron's government – has intensified the regressively redistributive dynamics at the core of the neo-liberal project. Ultimately, this is likely to further entrench structural weaknesses in Britain's economy in the years ahead.     

一种劳资关系理论的新探索：劳资关系周期理论

劳资关系的矛盾与冲突日益加剧,实现劳资关系的和谐与稳定,对我国构建和谐社会有着极其重要的意义.企业中劳方与资方之间存在"劳资关系周期",各周期中具有不同的特点和应对策略.企业应通过构建和谐劳资关系享受收益,增加自身的无形资产,从而提高企业核心竞争力.     

Approximating the DGP of China's quarterly GDP

We demonstrate that the Data Generating Process (DGP) of China's cumulated quarterly Gross Domestic Product (GDP, current prices), as it is reported by the National Bureau of Statistics of China (NBSC), can be (very closely) approximated by a simple rule. This rule says that the annual growth in any quarter is equal to the annual growth in its previous quarter plus an error term that is only nonzero in the first quarter of each year and with small variance. We show that this rule fits the data well for the period 1992Q1–2005Q4 for total GDP. It also gives accurate forecasts for 2006Q1–2009Q4.     

China's Energy in Transition: Regional and Global Implications

China is the largest energy user in Asia and the second largest in the world after the US. This paper documents substantial changes of the structure of China's energy use over the past decades. It explores the puzzling phenomena of China's low gross domestic product elasticity of energy consumption. Econometric analysis applying the AutoRegressive Integrated Moving Average model finds that factors such as institutional reforms and structural change can account for a substantial fraction of the downward impacts on the elasticity level. The paper also studies the future energy growth and energy security issues in China, and examines the regional and global impacts of China's rapidly growing energy consumption.     

The Political Economy of Energy Transitions: The Case of South Africa

This paper explores the political economy of energy transition in South Africa. An economic model based around a powerful ‘minerals-energy complex’ that has previously been able to provide domestic and foreign capital with cheap and plentiful coal-generated electricity is no longer economically or environmentally sustainable. The paper analyses the struggle over competing energy visions, infrastructures and political agendas in order to generate insights into the governance and financing of clean energy transitions in South Africa. It provides both a rich empirical account of key policy developments aimed at enabling such a transition and provides reflections on how best to theorise the contested politics of energy transitions.     

Varying Political Economy Weights of Protection: The Case of Colombia

In this paper, we examine trade policy determinants and trade reform in a developing country setting using a political economy model. The government determines tariffs by balancing the political support from producers vs. consumers, while placing a higher political weight on producers’ welfare relative to average citizens. We then expand the model in several directions to guide our subsequent estimations at the three‐digit industry level for Colombia between 1983 and 1998. We account for import substitution motives for protection but describe how the government's move away from these policies leads to unilateral trade liberalization. We innovatively allow the political weights to vary based on key industry variables beyond a common denominator. The sectors with higher employment, labor cost, and preferential trade agreement (PTA) import shares receive a larger political weight compared to otherwise similar sectors. The novelty of our approach is estimating the effect of sectoral characteristics on protection filtered through the political weights. We obtain more realistic estimates for these weights and provide some evidence for a slowing down effect of PTAs on trade liberalization.     

我国县域农户家庭劳动力利用的实证分析——以山东省梁山县为例

本文对我国县域农户家庭劳动力利用的情况进行了分析,并对劳动力利用的影响因素进行了模型估计。研究结果表明:当前我国农村还存在20%～30%的富余劳动力需要转移;农户在进行家庭内部分工时基于家庭效益最大化考虑;农户家庭收入来源和镇域经济发展对县域农户家庭劳动力利用有显著影响,不同的家庭劳动力特征对农户家庭就业决策的影响存在一定差异,政策性补贴对农户家庭就业决策的影响不大。在此基础上,本文提出若干政策建议。     

Global Crisis,National Responses: The Political Economy of Turkish Exceptionalism

With its dilatory and piecemeal fiscal activism and uncharacteristic aversion to IMF assistance, the Turkish government's response to the global economic crisis of 2008–9 diverged considerably from prevalent trends in other major emerging market countries. Underlying this intriguing pattern were Turkey's pre-existing policy and macroeconomic constraints, cognitive lapses on the part of policymakers, and the conjunctural dynamics of domestic politics. The interplay of these factors progressively narrowed the policy space for vigorous action, leading to a motley combination of reactive initiatives that neither offered sufficient protection to vulnerable social groups nor promised sustainable growth in the long run despite rapid short-term recovery.     

The Constitutional Political Economy of Public Deficits: The Spanish Case 1

This paper makes an argument for the reshaping of the current design of the Spanish budgetary system, pivoting around its legal submission to the balanced-budget rule. Based on a political economy approach to budgeting within the present context of the European Monetary Union, it is argued that such a rule is sorely needed in order to make the traditional Spanish model compatible with the new institutional technology presently developing in the European Community which deals with fiscal policy.