Global value chains and labour standards: The race-to-the-bottom problem
研究全球化如何影响政府设定劳工标准的激励，发现降低贸易成本或增加技能互补国家可改善工作条件，而增加技能相似国家则相反，且均衡标准比最优更严格。
Abstract We ask how globalization affects governments’ incentives to set labour standards for workers. In a stylized global value chain model, globalization by reducing trade costs or adding countries with complementary skills improves working conditions, whether set by employers or governments. Addition of countries with similar skills has the opposite effect. Equilibrium labour standards are actually stricter than optimal because each country passes some of the costs of its improved labour standards onto other countries (consumers of the final good, for example). Nash equilibrium tariffs make regulation of working conditions redundant, but multilateral reduction of tariffs brings them back into force.