The analysis of employment relationship in contract economic theories: a critical review based on the nature of American and French labor laws

Bernard Baudry () and Virgile Chassagnon
Additional contact information
Bernard Baudry: TRIANGLE - Triangle : action, discours, pensée politique et économique - ENS de Lyon - École normale supérieure de Lyon - Université de Lyon - UL2 - Université Lumière - Lyon 2 - IEP Lyon - Sciences Po Lyon - Institut d'études politiques de Lyon - Université de Lyon - UJM - Université Jean Monnet - Saint-Étienne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: Despite the numerous economic works on the nature of the firm, only a few studies have clearly taken into account the legal and institutional contexts of the employer-employee relationship. This paper aims at comparing the regulation rules of the employment relationship advocated by contract economic theories to the American and French labor laws in both a positive and normative perspective. From a positive perspective, the contract approaches to the firm – transaction cost economics, the nexus of contracts theory and the modern theory of property rights – are similar to the tradition of American labor law. However, from a normative point of view, it appears that if contract economic theories seem to be partially in line with certain principles of the French labor law, there is a strong inconsistency between these approaches and the role that the French legal system gives to the State and to the law courts (and judges).

Keywords: contract economic theories; employment relationship; American labor law; French labor law; contractual freedom; employers’ powers; collective negotiation; disputes settlement (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Published in Economie et institutions, 2018, 27, [23 p.]. ⟨10.4000/ei.6127⟩

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-01943180

DOI: 10.4000/ei.6127

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().