Strong Walk and Cheap Talk: The Effect of the International Covenant of Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights on Policies and Practices

Cole, Wade M.

doi:10.1093/sf/sot074

Cited by 59 publications

(44 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…Many of the more recent income inequality studies use the SWIID Gini coefficient (see, e.g., Desbordes and Verardi 2012;Cole 2013;Morgan and Kelly 2013). However, this index has the limitation that it is estimated, and estimates may be biased (for several reasons).…”

Section: Data and Preliminary Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

Income Inequality and Health: Evidence from Developed and Developing Countries

Herzer

Nunnenkamp

2015

Economics

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We assess the effect of income inequality on life expectancy by performing separate estimations for developed and developing countries. Our empirical analysis challenges the widely held view that inequality matters more for health in richer countries than for health in poorer countries. Employing panel cointegration and conventional panel regressions, we find that income inequality slightly increases life expectancy in developed countries. By contrast, the effect on life expectancy is significantly negative in developing countries. Even though the quantitative effects are small, the contrast between the two country groups proves to be robust to modifications in measurement, specification and methodological choices. Nunnenkamp (2015). Income Inequality and Health: Evidence from Developed and Developing Countries. Economics: The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal, 9 (2015-4): 1-57. http:// dx.doi.org/10.5018/economics-ejournal.ja. www.economics-ejournal.org 2 JEL I14 C23 IntroductionIncome disparities have widened in various developed and developing countries during the process of economic globalization. Critics have called for redistributive policy interventions, not only for reasons of fairness but also to avoid economic and social costs of wide income gaps. Impaired health could add considerably to such costs. Pickett (2006: 1768) conclude from their comprehensive review of the literature that the large majority of more than 150 empirical studies suggest that "health is less good in societies where income differences are bigger." 1 In particular, this applies to international cross-country studies. Moreover, the literature suggests that the case for health-related redistribution is particularly strong for developed countries. According to Wilkinson (1996: 4), the distribution of income is "one of the most powerful influences on the health of whole populations in the developed world to have come to light." 2 Lynch et al. (1998Lynch et al. ( : 1074 reckoned that the loss of life from income inequality in the United States "is comparable to the combined loss of life from lung cancer, diabetes, motor vehicle crashes, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, suicide, and homicide in 1995." The so-called Whitehall studies on British civil servants showed "that, even among people who are not poor, there is a social gradient in mortality that runs from the bottom to the top of society" (Marmot 2003: S10). 3 More recently, the meta analysis of Kondo et al. (2009) reveals a modest adverse effect of income inequality on health. 4 Zheng (2012) finds that, while income inequality did not have an instantaneous effect on mortality risk in the United States, long-term _________________________ 1 See also Lynch et al. (2004) who review almost 100 studies addressing the question of whether more unequal societies are less healthy. Informative reviews of the relevant literature are also presented by Judge et al. (1998), Wagstaff and van Doorslaer (2000), Deaton (2003), and Subramanian and Kawachi (2004). 2 I...

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Section: Data and Preliminary Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

Income Inequality and Health: Evidence from Developed and Developing Countries

Herzer

Nunnenkamp

2015

Economics

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“…Domestic political institutions may also affect labour rights. As democracies tend to have more respect for socioeconomic and political rights than non‐democratic regimes, we include a measure of Democracy (Mosley & Uno ; Cole ). Drawn from the Polity IV dataset (Marshall et al ), this index ranges from –10 to +10, where –10 represents lowest level of democracy.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Economic liberalisation, market institutions and labour rights

Blanton

Peksen

2016

European Journal of Political Research

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What effect do pro‐market economic policies have on labour rights? Despite significant debate in policy and academic circles about the consequences of economic liberalisation, little is known about the labour rights effects of pro‐market policies. Extant literature has focused only on the possible outcomes of market‐liberalising policies, such as trade and investment flows, rather than directly assessing market‐friendly policies and institutions. Moreover, this line of research has found mixed results on how these outcomes influence labour conditions. To provide a comprehensive assessment of this linkage, this article combines data on five distinct policy areas associated with economic liberalisation with data on labour rights for the period 1981–2012. The results indicate that pro‐market policies – except the ones involving rule of law and secure property rights – undermine labour rights. Thus while there are some positive economic and political outcomes associated with market‐supporting policies, economic liberalisation comes at the cost of respect for labour rights.

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“…Previous research explored how domestic political institutions and political stability affect labor rights (Mosley & Uno, 2007). Others examined the effect of external factors such as trade and foreign capital (Blanton & Blanton, 2012;Kucera, 2002;Mosley, 2011), international laws and treaties (Cole, 2013), IMF and World Bank policies (Abouharb & Cingranelli, 2007;Blanton, Blanton, & Peksen, 2015) and transnational labor movements and norms (Murillo & Schrank, 2005). Other research has provided further insights into how collective bargaining groups mobilize and respond to potential threats related to globalization (Kim & Kim, 2003).…”

Section: The Political Economy Of Financial Shocks and Collective Labmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The data for economic indicators and population are from the World Bank's World Development Indicators (2012). To account for the expected positive impact of regime type on labor conditions, we include a Democracy variable (Cole, 2013;Mosley & Uno, 2007). This variable is from the Polity IV dataset (Marshall & Jaggers, 2000) and each country's democracy score ranges from À10 to 10, where À10 represents lowest level of democracy.…”

Section: (B) Financial Crises and Other Explanatory Variablesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The dichotomous Communist and Leftist Government variables control for the possibility that countries ruled by communist regimes or by leftist political parties (excluding communist regimes) have established labor groups and are thus more likely to promote and enforce collective labor rights (Berliner, Greenleaf, Lake, & Noveck, 2015;Cole, 2013). The data for these variables are from the Database of Political Institutions (Beck, Clarke, Groff, Keefer, & Walsh, 2001).…”

Section: (B) Financial Crises and Other Explanatory Variablesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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