TY  - JOUR
AU  - Elliott, Kimberly Ann
AU  - Freeman, Richard
TI  - White Hats or Don Quixotes?  Human Rights Vigilantes in the Global Economy
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 8102
PY  - 2001
Y2  - January 2001
DO  - 10.3386/w8102
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w8102
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w8102.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Kimberly Elliott
E-Mail: elliottka.443@gmail.com

Richard B. Freeman
NBER
1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA  02138
Tel: 617/868-3900
Fax: 617/868-2742
E-Mail: freeman@nber.org
M1  - published as Kimberly Ann. Elliott, Richard B. Freeman. "White Hats or Don Quixotes? Human Rights Vigilantes in the Global Economy," in Richard B. Freeman, Joni Hersch and Lawrence Mishel, editors, "Emerging Labor Market Institutions for the Twenty-First Century" University of Chicago Press (2005)

AB  - 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.
ER  -