Persistently non-compliant employment practice in the informal economy: permissive visibility in a multiple regulator setting

Collins, A ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9805-9091, Clark, I ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7698-2715, Fearnall-Williams, H ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4183-4840, Hunter, J ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5501-6718 and Pickford, R ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9741-6923, 2023. Persistently non-compliant employment practice in the informal economy: permissive visibility in a multiple regulator setting. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 47 (3), pp. 611-632. ISSN 0309-166X

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Abstract

The growing significance of non-compliant employment practice in the British economy has motivated scrutiny of the effectiveness of current regulation. In some markets, charges of labour exploitation, under payment of the national minimum wage and associated 'wage theft' from workers are rife where business operations are characterised by academics, regulators, and stakeholders as exuding 'permissive visibility'. The current landscape of enforcement and regulation of informal business and employment practices features complex structural and operational issues for regulators subject to tight resource constraints. These enable permissiveness and offer scope for strategic regulatory tolerance of some violation types, possibly to raise compliance rates for other types of violations. Drawing on extensive empirical evidence and qualitative data sources in one market sector (hand car washes), this study investigates some key hypotheses focussing on compliance and responses by businesses and regulators to the extant regulatory regime. These inform a pragmatic institutional analysis considering the merits of some movement towards a single enforcement body instead of the existing arrangements featuring multiple regulatory institutions.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Cambridge Journal of Economics
Creators:	Collins, A., Clark, I., Fearnall-Williams, H., Hunter, J. and Pickford, R.
Publisher:	Oxford University Press (OUP)
Date:	May 2023
Volume:	47
Number:	3
ISSN:	0309-166X
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1093/cje/bead007 DOI 1635683 Other
Rights:	This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced version of an article accepted for publication in Cambridge Journal of Economics following peer review. The version of record Collins, A., Clark, I., Fearnall-Williams, H., Hunter, J., & Pickford, R. (2023). Persistently non-compliant employment practice in the informal economy: permissive visibility in a multiple regulator setting. Cambridge Journal of Economics, is available online at: https://doi.org/10.1093/cje/bead007
Divisions:	Schools > Nottingham Business School Schools > School of Social Sciences
Record created by:	Laura Ward
Date Added:	19 Jan 2023 14:42
Last Modified:	22 Aug 2023 15:30
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/47976

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