Politico-Economic Causes of Labor Regulation in the United States: Rent Seeking, Alliances, Raising Rivals' Costs (Even Lowering One's Own?), and Interjurisdictional Competition

John Addison

No 2381, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper offers an eclectic survey of the political economy of labor regulation in the United States at federal and state levels along the dimensions of occupational health and safety, unjust dismissal, right-to-work, workplace safety and workers’ compensation, living wages, and prevailing wages. We discuss rent seeking/predation, coalition formation, judicial review, and interjurisdictional competition as well as the implications of union decline. Our analysis should help dispel any notion that the U.S. labor market is unregulated while also indicating that the political process shows some sensitivity to benefits and costs.

Keywords: judicial review; prevailing wages; living wage ordinances; labor regulation; right-to-work; workplace safety; unjust dismissals; OSHA; interjurisdictional competition; regulatory capture; unionism. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H70 J28 J38 J41 J48 J58 J65 J80 K31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38 pages
Date: 2006-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab, nep-law, nep-pol and nep-reg
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published - published in: R. Vaubel and P. Bernholz (eds.), Political Competition and Economic Regulation, London: Routledge 2007

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp2381.pdf (application/pdf)

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:iza:izadps:dp2381

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().