Laura Boudreau

Content by Laura Boudreau

• Blog post

  Social norms and firm productivity in Bangladeshi garment factories

  Low firm productivity in developing countries presents a key barrier to economic development. Existing economic literature largely focuses on the effects of managers’ and workers’ behaviours on firm productivity (e.g., misallocation of female labour inside the firm). In contrast, we ask why certain behaviours that negatively impact firm productivity arise. We focus on...

  28 Feb 2020 | Laura Boudreau, Noam Yuchtman, Oren Reshef, Sakib Ifetkh Mahmood

• Blog post

  Improving labour standards: Enforcement interventions by multinationals in Bangladesh

  When MNCs enforce garment factory Safety Committee law on external suppliers, compliance and safety indicators improve. Importantly, the degree to which they improve depends on the supplier’s organisational capacity. In developing countries, governments often lack the capacity or the political will to update and enforce regulations (Dal Bó and Finan, 2016), including...

  6 Feb 2020 | Laura Boudreau

• Project

  Scoping visit on evidence and voice for minimum wage revisions

  Across the globe, workers and unions have played a key role in raising minimum wages through participation at policy dialogues or strikes. Their expectations about minimum wages and the ways they influence policy dialogue are important for sustainable industry growth. While minimum wage may ensure fair compensation for workers, it may come at the cost of firm closures and...

  10 Oct 2019 | Virginia Minni, Mari Tanaka, Laura Boudreau

• Publication - Working Paper

  Migrants, information, and working conditions in Bangladeshi garment factories

  15 Jun 2018 | Laura Boudreau, Rachel Heath

  
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• Project

  Demand-driven, private sector enforcement of labour law in Bangladesh

  Global supply chains often extend into weak states with limited social and environmental regulations and with little formal enforcement of existing regulations. Integration into global supply chains provides benefits to firms and workers in these countries (Tanaka, 2016; Atkin et al., 2016). But lack of regulation and lack of enforcement of existing regulation also carry...

  25 Jan 2018 | Noam Yuchtman, Laura Boudreau

• Project

  Understanding workers’ knowledge of working conditions in Bangladeshi garment factories

  The garment industry has revolutionised the lives of many people, particularly women, in Bangladesh.  Women have received greater educational investments and postponed marriage and childbearing, and achieved better autonomy household decision-making, the choice of spouse, and the choice to leave abusive marriages.  However, these workers can also face very tough working...

  9 Jan 2017 | Laura Boudreau, Rachel Heath