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This article addresses a key issue in debates regarding economic globalization: to what extent does the internationalization of production, via foreign direct investment, lead to increased abuses of workers in developing countries? Using a new dataset on collective labor rights violations, we assess the relationship between foreign direct investment and labor rights violations in over 100 developing nations, for 1985-2000. Our focus is on the legal rights and actual capacity of workers to organize, strike, and bargain collectively. In cross-sectional time series analyses, we find that, where accumulated stocks of foreign direct investment are higher, violations of collective labor rights are greater. We also report evidence of competition within groups of countries: labor rights violations in one country are strongly associated with labor rights violations in the region, as well as in other countries at similar levels of development. These findings suggest that the critics of economic globalization have a point: foreign direct investment could lead to downward pressures on workers? collective rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This project advances the research on the direct investment-human rights relationship by applying a more nuanced analytical framework. While we employ existing aggregate measures of human rights practices, we also formulate a new, more specific index of labor rights practices. The index is based on a 37-point scale of labor rights violations, and draws on information from the ILO, the ICFTU, and the US State Department Human Rights Reports. Our index represents the component of human rights practices that is most likely to be related causally to foreign direct investment flows. In addition, we consider the impact not only of overall levels of FDI, but also of the sectoral composition and geographic sources of FDI. On the basis of our analyses of data on labor standards, human rights, and direct investment in developing nations (for the 1980-1999 period), we conclude that foreign direct investment has a mixed impact on labor and human rights in developing nations. Foreign direct investment is not necessarily good, in a normative sense, for developing nations; but neither is it necessarily harmful. In fact, our evidence suggests that some types of foreign economic activity are associated with improved human and labor rights, but others are related to deteriorations in these rights. We also suggest that the impact of direct investment is contingent on the structure of the domestic economy. In economies that are characterized by more capital-intensive production, workers rights are generally better, even when controlling for a variety of international economic and domestic political factors. Furthermore, we note that, when considering the causal relationships between foreign economic factors and labor rights, it is analytically important to differentiate between labor standards and overall human rights practices, as well as between levels of rights and changes in rights over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assesses the extent to which the impact of multinational production (trade, foreign direct investment and subcontracting) on labor rights varies across economic sectors (e.g. labor vs. capital intensive) and across host countries. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses a key issue in debates regarding economic globalization: to what extent does the internationalization of production, via foreign direct investment, lead to increased abuses of workers in developing countries? Using a new dataset on collective labor rights violations, we assess the relationship between foreign direct investment and labor rights violations in over 100 developing nations, for 1985-2000. Our focus is on the legal rights and actual capacity of workers to organize, strike, and bargain collectively. In cross-sectional time series analyses, we find that, where accumulated stocks of foreign direct investment are higher, violations of collective labor rights are greater. At the same time, though, where new flows of foreign direct investment are greater, violations of collective labor rights are smaller. We also report evidence of competition within groups of countries: labor rights violations in one country are strongly associated with labor rights violations in the region, as well as in other countries at similar levels of development. These findings suggest that the relationship between economic globalization and labor rights in developing countries is a complex one, and that it is influenced more strongly by domestic institutions and the policies of peer countries than by foreign investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]