White Hats or Don Quixotes? Human Rights Vigilantes in the Global Economy

Kimberly Elliott and Richard Freeman

No 8102, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: With the continuing expansion of global economic integration, labor standards in developing countries have become a hot button issue. One result has been a proliferation of efforts to use the market to put pressure directly on multinational corporations to improve wages and working conditions in their overseas operations and to insist that their suppliers do so as well. This paper analyzes the dynamics of these efforts in terms of a 'market for standards' in which consumers, stimulated by human rights activists, demand that corporations improve working conditions in supplier factories. The paper presents evidence that such a consumer demand exists and analyzes the incentives corporations face to respond to it. It examines the nature of the critical intermediary role played by activists in stimulating consumer demands and assesses the outcomes in the major anti-sweatshop campaigns of the 1990s. The paper also addresses the limitations of such consumer-based campaigns and the concern expressed by some that these activist campaigns may do more harm than good, by deterring investment in and trade with poor countries. It concludes with an overall assessment of when 'doing good' actually does good.

Date: 2001-01
Note: LS
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (24)

Published as White Hats or Don Quixotes? Human Rights Vigilantes in the Global Economy , Kimberly Ann Elliott, Richard B. Freeman. in Emerging Labor Market Institutions for the Twenty-First Century , Freeman, Hersch, and Mishel. 2005

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w8102.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Chapter: White Hats or Don Quixotes? Human Rights Vigilantes in the Global Economy (2004)
Working Paper: White Hats or Don Quixotes? Human Rights Vigilantes in the Global Economy (2004)
Working Paper: White hats or Don Quixotes? Human rights vigilantes in the global economy (2004)
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:nbr:nberwo:8102

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w8102

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().