Sweatshops forever: oppression raises wages.

• Author: Barley, Ronald
• Position: Citings

WANT TO IMPROVE the lives of poorworkers in developing countries? Then rush out an d buy a pair of Nikes or Levi Strauss jeans, says a new report by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

The authors decided to test the burgeoning anti-sweatshop movement's claims that multi-national corporations oppress workers in developing countries. A recent Albany Times-Union column summarizes die familiar argument: "It's common knowledge [sweatshops] exist in Third World countries, and that much of the cheap labor that produces the most expensive sports apparel and sneakers are young years ago in reason children paid a substandard wage and working in horrendous conditions."

But when economists looked at reams of economic data on wages and workers' rights in developing countries, they found that multinationals generally paid more--often a lot more--than the wages offered by locally owned companies. The study cites evidence that affiliates of U.S. multinationals "pay a wage premium that ranges from 40 percent in high-income countries to 100 percent, or double the local average wage, in low-income countries."

Vietnamese workers in foreign-owned apparel and...