UROP Project

Trade, labor, international agreements, economics, human rights
Research Mentor: Chris Gahagan, he/him
Department, College, Affiliation: Political Science, Social Sciences and Public Policy
Contact Email: cgahagan@fsu.edu
Research Assistant Supervisor (if different from mentor):
Research Assistant Supervisor Email:
Faculty Collaborators:
Faculty Collaborators Email:
Looking for Research Assistants: No
Number of Research Assistants: 2
Relevant Majors: Open to all majors, preference for those in the social sciences.
Project Location: On FSU Main Campus
Research Assistant Transportation Required:
Remote or In-person: In-person
Approximate Weekly Hours: 5-10,
Roundtable Times and Zoom Link: https://fsu.zoom.us/j/94540642031

Meeting ID: 945 4064 2031

Tuesday, 9/3/2024, 4:30 pm to 5:00 pm

Project Description

This project investigates if trade agreements with labor protections reduces economic informality compared to trade agreements that do not have labor protections. Specifically, this project will include a time-series cross-sectional analysis of trade agreements on the size of the informal economy for a global sample of countries and free trade agreements.

The informal economy is surprisingly large, consisting of 61% of the global workforce and comprising over 2 billion individuals. Informal work often includes dangerous and low paying jobs, and is known to increase inequality and hurt sustainable development. Previously, trade agreements were thought to increase informal employment due to a lack of protections for workers, and a "race-to-the-bottom" approach that firms employed to stay competitive. However, starting with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), labor protections started to be explicitly entered into trade agreements, with the goal of protecting worker's rights in both developed and developing countries. This project aims to see whether these new trade agreements have successfully protected labor rights, with the observable implication being a reduction in the size of the informal economy.

Research Tasks: Tasks include literature reviews as well as qualitative and quantitative data collection. Qualitative data collection includes investigating individual trade agreements to see what (if any) enforcement mechanisms are present to protect labor rights. Additionally, reading labor and trade agreement reports from IOs such as the International labor organization (ILO), and NGOs such as Human Rights Watch or Amnesty international will be necessary. Quantitative data collection will involve help creating a trade agreement dataset with and without labor protections, as well as data on the informal economy. If a student is comfortable, minor data analysis may be done, but not necessary.

Skills that research assistant(s) may need: required skills:
- able to read through complex agreements and pick out important facts and information
- use of search engines and google scholar to find academic articles and read reports from IOs and NGOs.
- basic data entry such as in Microsoft excel

Recommended skills:
- knowledge of the R programming software/language
- some background in international relations, political economy, economics, and human rights
- very minor data analysis

Mentoring Philosophy

My philosophy is to provide my mentees with the tools they need to succeed and be there for any questions they may have along the way. I view this as a collaborative experience and want to make sure my mentee can take the knowledge acquired here and apply it in many different aspects of their lives. Although this will be a collaborative project, I do expect mentees to take ownership and pride in their work. We will work as a team and not through a hierarchical structure. I encourage mentees to be open about their ideas, how they think they might improve the project, or to share their unique perspectives along the way. Importantly, I want my mentees to know that it is okay to fail. We only learn when we fail, and the goal of this project will be to help students get a taste of an original research project with real-world impacts. I do not expect mentees to have much research experience when they join, so I am aware there will be a learning curve in the process. However, when we are finished, I believe the mentees will be able to confidently present their findings during the UROP poster session and use their newfound knowledge in their future endeavors.

Additional Information


Link to Publications

www.chrisgahagan.com
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