Cost, risk, and labor markets: the state and sticky institutions in global production networks

This article posits that there is no a priori reason that industrial upgrading and market expansion leads to greater social protections or better regulation. I ask three questions and attempt a conceptual framework for institutions and their broader spatial evolution. A firm’s regional risk ecology ties in insightful ways for primary-secondary workers, insider-outsiders, and to the emergence of social protections. I propose a typology of place, work, and work-place institutions that mitigate risks and mediate costs. Industrial upgrading is a work-place based process; evolution of “informality”, wider social protections, and labour regulations can be assessed accordingly.