IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cbr/cbrwps/wp504.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Law-Technology Cycle & the Future of Work

Author

Listed:
  • Simon Deakin
  • Christopher Markou
  • Centre for Business Research

Abstract

Features of the 'fourth industrial revolution', such as platforms, AI and machine learning, pose challenges for the application of regulatory rules, in the area of labour law as elsewhere. However, today's digital technologies have their origins in earlier phases of industrialisation, and do not, in themselves, mark a step change in the evolution of capitalism, which was, and is, characterised by successive waves of creative destruction. The law does not simply respond to technological change; it also facilitates and mediates it. Digitalisation, by permitting the appropriation of collective knowledge, has the capacity to undermine existing forms of regulation, while creating the space for new ones. It may erode the position of some professions while enabling others, complementary to new technologies, to emerge. It is unlikely to bring about the redundancy of forms of labour law regulation centred on the employment relationship. We appear to reaching a point in the law-technology cycle where push-back against regulatory arbitrage can be expected.

Suggested Citation

  • Simon Deakin & Christopher Markou & Centre for Business Research, 2018. "The Law-Technology Cycle & the Future of Work," Working Papers wp504, Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge.
    • Handle: RePEc:cbr:cbrwps:wp504
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/cbrwp504/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David, Paul A, 1985. "Clio and the Economics of QWERTY," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(2), pages 332-337, May.
    2. Deakin, Simon & Wilkinson, Frank, 2005. "The Law of the Labour Market: Industrialization, Employment, and Legal Evolution," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198152811.
    3. David H. Autor, 2015. "Why Are There Still So Many Jobs? The History and Future of Workplace Automation," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 29(3), pages 3-30, Summer.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bernhard Reinsberg & Centre for Business Research, 2018. "Blockchain Technology and the Governance of Foreign Aid," Working Papers wp505, Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge.
    2. Nhuchhen, Daya R. & Sit, Song P. & Layzell, David B., 2022. "Decarbonization of cement production in a hydrogen economy," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 317(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Montobbio, Fabio & Staccioli, Jacopo & Virgillito, Maria Enrica & Vivarelli, Marco, 2022. "Robots and the origin of their labour-saving impact," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 174(C).
    2. Giovanni DOSI & Maria Enrica VIRGILLITO, 2019. "Whither the evolution of the contemporary social fabric? New technologies and old socio‐economic trends," International Labour Review, International Labour Organization, vol. 158(4), pages 593-625, December.
    3. Antonio ALOISI & Valerio DE STEFANO, 2020. "Regulation and the future of work: The employment relationship as an innovation facilitator," International Labour Review, International Labour Organization, vol. 159(1), pages 47-69, March.
    4. Björn Döhring & Atanas Hristov & Christoph Maier & Werner Roeger & Anna Thum-Thysen, 2021. "COVID-19 acceleration in digitalisation, aggregate productivity growth and the functional income distribution," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 18(3), pages 571-604, July.
    5. Wiebke Roß & Jens Weghake, 2018. "Wa(h)re Liebe: Was Online-Dating-Plattformen über zweiseitige Märkte lehren," TUC Working Papers in Economics 0017, Abteilung für Volkswirtschaftslehre, Technische Universität Clausthal (Department of Economics, Technical University Clausthal).
    6. Ashraf Elsafty & Ahmed Elzeftawy, 2023. "Towards Effective Mitigation of the Digital Transformation and COVID-19 Risk on Unemployment in Mobile Operators in Egypt," International Journal of Business and Management, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 17(2), pages 123-123, February.
    7. Cette, Gilbert & Devillard, Aurélien & Spiezia, Vincenzo, 2021. "The contribution of robots to productivity growth in 30 OECD countries over 1975–2019," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).
    8. Marta Gancarczyk, 2010. "Model schyłku i odrodzenia klastrów," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 3, pages 1-21.
    9. Narduzzo, Alessandro & Warglien, Massimo, 1996. "Learning from the Experience of Others: An Experiment on Information Contagion," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 5(1), pages 113-126.
    10. John S. Earle & Klara Z. Sabirianova, 2002. "How Late to Pay? Understanding Wage Arrears in Russia," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 20(3), pages 661-707, July.
    11. Rehák Štefan & Hudec Oto & Buček Milan, 2013. "Path dependency and path plasticity in emerging industries: Two cases from Slovakia," ZFW – Advances in Economic Geography, De Gruyter, vol. 57(1-2), pages 52-66, October.
    12. Beomjin Choi & T. S. Raghu & Ajay Vinzé & Kevin J. Dooley, 2019. "Effectiveness of standards consortia: Social network perspectives," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 405-416, April.
    13. Mahzouni, Arian, 2019. "The role of institutional entrepreneurship in emerging energy communities: The town of St. Peter in Germany," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 297-308.
    14. Ayhan, Fatih & Elal, Onuray, 2023. "The IMPACTS of technological change on employment: Evidence from OECD countries with panel data analysis," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    15. Georg Erber, 1994. "Verdoorn's or Okun's Law?: Employment and Growth Experiences in OECD Countries, 1960-1993," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 98, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    16. Ville-Veikko Pulkka, 2017. "A free lunch with robots – can a basic income stabilise the digital economy?," Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, , vol. 23(3), pages 295-311, August.
    17. Adrian Otoiu & Ramona Bere & Catalin Silvestru, 2017. "An Assessment of the First Round Impact of Innovation Industries on Europe’s Regional Economies," The AMFITEATRU ECONOMIC journal, Academy of Economic Studies - Bucharest, Romania, vol. 19(44), pages 289-289, February.
    18. Atallah, Shadi S. & Huang, Ju-Chin & Leahy, Jessica & Bennett, Karen, 2020. "Preference Heterogeneity and Neighborhood Effect in Invasive Species Control: The Case of Glossy Buckthorn in New Hampshire and Maine Forests," 2020 Annual Meeting, July 26-28, Kansas City, Missouri 304623, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    19. McCloskey Deirdre Nansen, 2018. "The Two Movements in Economic Thought, 1700–2000: Empty Economic Boxes Revisited," Man and the Economy, De Gruyter, vol. 5(2), pages 1-20, December.
    20. Yunyao Li & Yanji Ma, 2022. "Research on Industrial Innovation Efficiency and the Influencing Factors of the Old Industrial Base Based on the Lock-In Effect, a Case Study of Jilin Province, China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-23, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    gig economy; digitalisation; future of work; labour law; law and technology; Uber;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J41 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Labor Contracts
    • J48 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Particular Labor Markets; Public Policy
    • K31 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law - - - Labor Law
    • L22 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Organization and Market Structure
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cbr:cbrwps:wp504. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Ruth Newman (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.