The Evolution of Labour Law: Calibrating and Comparing Regulatory Regimes

Abstract

We present evidence on the evolution of labour law in five countries (the UK, USA, Germany, France and India) using a newly-created dataset which measures legal change over time. The results cast light on the claim that legal origin, or the influence of common law and civil law regulatory styles, affects the content of labour law regimes. We find some divergence between common law and civil law countries at the aggregate level but a more complex picture when the index is decomposed so as to identify changes in specific areas of labour law. We discuss the potential significance of this relatively new approach to the measurement of law for understanding the forces at work in the evolution of labour law.

Keywords: labour law, labor law, employee protection, legal origin, comparative law, leximetrics, numerical comparative law

JEL Classification: J53, K31, N30, P50