"Preface" [2016] ELECD 1533; in Marshall, Shelley; Fenwick, Colin (eds), "Labour Regulation and Development" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2016) xiii

Book Title: Labour Regulation and Development

Editor(s): Marshall, Shelley; Fenwick, Colin

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781785364891

Section Title: Preface

Number of pages: 4

Extract:

Preface
The goal of this volume is to explore how labour law can be understood
as an institution and as a policy instrument in the context of a broader
concept of economic and human development. The authors are predomi-
nantly labour lawyers, although among them are some with experience in
development studies, and with knowledge and experience of key facets of
economics, and of the quantitative research methods that are a common-
place in that discipline, even if they are not in law. One author is actually
an economist ­ even if writing jointly with a lawyer.
This is important, because it serves in part to explain how we would see
the volume as being situated. In particular it explains why there is little or
no empirical, or quantitative analysis in a book about a subject which is
frequently ­ in some disciplines, usually ­ considered from the perspective
of such research methodologies. One way to understand this is to consider
the volume in the context of the debate in the English language labour law
literature ­ at least ­ over the functions and purposes of labour law. Much
of this debate ­ not unusually for the discipline ­ is normative, or perhaps
theoretical in nature. From this point of view, we hope the volume con-
tributes to debate over an important question: what is and what should be
the goals and purposes of labour law in an era when some of the received
wisdom in that field has increasingly come into question? Several chapters
touch on ...