Does economic globalization create a “race to the bottom” or a “race to the top” in labor rights practices? Despite significant research on the possible impact of economic globalization on labor conditions, little consensus exists as to whether and what forms of economic openness might help or undermine labor rights. In this study, we illustrate the significance of considering the two distinct processes of de facto and de jure globalization. We argue that whereas de facto globalization in the form of trade and financial transactions is likely to result in worse labor rights practices, de jure globalization that entails regulations to facilitate these transactions is likely to have a positive effect on labor conditions. Combining time-series, cross-national data on labor rights with data on economic globalization, we find significant evidence of the divergent effects of de facto and de jure globalization on labor rights practices. Results also indicate that the labor rights effects of de facto and de jure globalization are stronger for trade than financial globalization. We further show that the effects of economic globalization apply to both collective and substantive labor rights practices.

经济全球化是在劳工维权实践中制造“逐底竞争”还是“逐顶竞争”？尽管对经济全球化对劳动条件可能产生的影响进行了大量研究，但对于经济开放是否以及何种形式可能有助于或损害劳工权利，几乎没有达成共识。在这项研究中，我们说明了考虑事实上和法律上的全球化两个不同过程的重要性。我们认为，尽管以贸易和金融交易形式出现的事实上的全球化可能会导致更糟的劳工权利实践，但需要制定法规以促进这些交易的法律上的全球化可能会对劳动条件产生积极影响。将时间序列、跨国劳工权利数据与经济全球化数据相结合，我们发现了事实和法律上全球化对劳工权利实践的不同影响的重要证据。结果还表明，事实上和法律上的全球化对贸易的劳工权利影响比金融全球化更强。我们进一步表明，经济全球化的影响适用于集体和实质性劳工权利实践。