代写英国assignment：自由市场经济

世界经济基于两种类型：自由市场经济和协调的市场经济。在自由市场经济（LME），公司和他们的金融家之间的协调问题，员工，供应商和客户是通过市场机制解决。大中型工业企业是自由市场经济。他们还有一个特点是相对分散的工业关系制度，集体谈判在企业或工作场所发生。由于市场的主导地位，大中型企业通常表现出相对短期的和敌对的关系的经济主体，即政府和其他国际机构。在人力资源管理领域，企业在培训和发展方面有不良记录，员工参与和参与的系统有限。在工会目前保持在手臂的长度的关系是对抗性的，主要集中在分配工资谈判。”虽然大中型工业企业的特点是短期的关系，他们也具备这样的创新和经济的大容量安全比较优势开发新产品和新产业，尤其是以科学为基础的产业，如生物技术和电脑。

 

Introduction 简介

The economies in the world are based on two types; the liberal market economies and the co-ordinated market economies. In liberal market economies (LME), the problem of coordination between firms and their financiers, employees, suppliers, and customers is solved through market mechanisms (Soskice, 1990). LMEs are free market economies. They are also characterized by a relatively decentralized system of industrial relations, with collective bargaining taking place at enterprise or workplace level (Soskice, 1990). Because of the dominance of the market, LMEs typically exhibit relatively short-term and adversarial relations between economic actors, i.e. the government and other international institutions. In the field of human resource management, there is a tendency for firms to have a poor record in training and development and to have limited systems of employee participation and involvement. Where trade unions are present they are kept at arm's length and the relationship is adversarial, focused mainly on distributive wage bargaining (Soskice, 1990). 'Although LMEs may be characterized by short-term and adversarial relations, they also possess a high capacity for innovation and economies of this kind secure comparative advantage by developing new products and new industries, particularly science-based industries such as biotechnology and computers' (Nissan 2003, pg 18). The prime example of a LME is the USA, but the label is also applied to the form of capitalist economies found in Australia, Britain, India, Canada, Ireland and New Zealand.

 

This essay will bring out the comparative and contrasting features of the economies of India (the world's largest democracy), UK (one of the parent systems of the world) and the US (the world's largest economy). The employment regulations in these three countries are unique. The UK employment/labour regulations are based on 'common law' and also framed by the statute (Sargeant & Lewis, 2006). The influence of EU laws is also significant in UK in the forms of various treaties, charters and 'Framework Directives'. The US labour system is based on a heterogeneous collection of federal and state laws. Federal law not only sets the standards that govern workers' rights to organize in the private sector, but overrides most state and local laws that attempt to regulate this area. Federal law also provides more limited rights for employees of the federal government (Nissan, 2003). However, the Indian labour system is solely based on the framework set by the Constitution (Bhattacharjea, 2006). There are more than 45 national laws and several state laws which regulate the labour system in India. The Indian labour system is known to be very rigid and is generally more pro-worker.

 

Though all the three are liberal market economies, they still have differences in their employment/labour law regimes. Initially, it is important to give an overview of each of the economies. Statistics on current GDP, unemployment rate etc is important in order to understand how the labour regulations work in each economy. Then the focus will shift towards the labour laws and will constitute comparisons of the various significant laws enacted in each country.

 

UK Economy - An Overview 英国经济-概要

During the days of the British Empire the UK economy was the largest in the world and the first to industrialize. Although it has declined in significance since, the UK is still the sixth largest economy in the world by purchasing power parity (economic watch, 2010). It is a member of the G7 (now expanding to the G8 and G20), the European Union (although not the European Economic and Monetary Union -EMU - or Euro) and the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development). It is also the founding member of the Commonwealth, the association formed by former British Empire states. UK budget deficit stood at 5.3 per cent of GDP in 2008 (Chamberlin, 2010). With economic stimulus packages and bank bailouts being worked on, that is expected to balloon to 11.3 per cent of GDP in 2009 and 13 per cent of GDP in 2010 (Chamberlin, 2010). The unemployment rate had reached 6.3 per cent in the UK by the end of 2008 according to the Office of National Statistics, reaching close to 2 million unemployed. This figure is likely to grow to the 2.5 million - 3 million figures, or 8-10% (Office of National Statistics, 2010). The forecast for 2010 has now shifted from flat to negative growth.

 

Indian Economy - An Overview 印度经济-概要

India, an emerging economy has witnessed unprecedented levels of economic expansion, along with countries like China, Russia, Mexico and Brazil. India, being a cost effective and labour intensive economy, has benefited immensely from outsourcing of work from developed countries, and a strong manufacturing and export oriented industrial framework (Malik, 1997). With the economic pace picking up, global commodity prices have staged a comeback from their lows and global trade has also seen healthy growth over the last two years. The global economy seems to be recovering after the recent economic shock. The Indian economy, however, was hit in the latter part of the global recession and the real economic growth witnessed a sharp fall, followed by lower exports, lower capital outflow and corporate restructuring (economic watch, 2010). The GDP growth was estimated to be just 5.4% in 2009 when compared to 7.3% in 2008 (economic watch, 2010). It is expected that the global economies will continue to sustain in the short-term, as the effect of stimulus programs is yet to bear fruit and tax cuts are working their way through the system in 2010. Due to the strong position of liquidity in the market, large corporations now have access to capital in the corporate credit markets (economic watch, 2010). In order to sustain economic growth during the time of the worst recession, the government authorities in India have announced stimulus packages in order to prop up economic growth and to finance these stimulus packages, the Indian government has raised over $100 billion over the last four quarters (economic watch, 2010).

 

US Economy - An Overview 美国经济-概要

The United States of America (USA) has the world's largest economy. US dominance has been eroded however by the creation of the European Union common market, which has an equivalent GDP of over $13 trillion, and by the rapid growth of the BRIC (Brazil-Russia-India-China) economies, in particular China, which is forecast to overtake the US in size within 30 years (economy watch, 2010). The recent failure in the US housing and credit markets has resulted in a slowdown in the US economy. The 2007 GDP growth was estimated at 2.2%, but in 2008 it was just 0.9%, down from the 10-year average of 2.8% (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2010). Around two-thirds of the total production of the country is driven by personal consumption. Although the US is often referred to as a free market economy, this is not entirely true, since there are government regulations protecting certain sectors, notably energy and agriculture. It can be more accurately described as a 'consumer economy'. In 2009 and 2010, following the Great Recession, the emerging problem of jobless recoveries resulted in record levels of long-term unemployment with over 6 million workers looking for work longer than 6 months as of January, 2010 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2010). This particularly affected older workers. In February 2010, the official unemployment rate was 9.7% (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2010).

 

Labour Regulations in UK 英国劳工条例

During the Nineteenth century the employment contract was based on the Master and Servant Act of 1823, designed to discipline employees and repress the 'combination' of workers in Trade Unions. Employment Law in the United Kingdom has developed rapidly over the past forty years, due to a historically strong Trade Union movement and since 1973 to the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union (Sargeant & Lewis, 2006).

 

In terms of its modern development, the central feature of the labour system had been a tradition of 'voluntarism' reflecting a view that the role of state should be confined to the creation of a rough equilibrium between the social forces of capital and organised labour. In its current form, it is largely a creature of Statute, (Acts of the UK Parliament) rather than Common Law. Leading Employment Law Statutes include the Employment Rights Act (ERA) 1996, the Race Relations Act 1976 (Amendment) Regulations 2003, the National Minimum Wage (NMW) Regulations 1999, the Employment Act 2002 amended in 2006 and various legislative provisions outlawing discrimination on the grounds of sex, race, disability, sexual orientation, religion and age. The UK labour system is also influenced by the EU Treaty and legislation in the form of Directives and the decisions of the international courts; especially the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). Other statutory bodies like the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS) and the Central Arbitration Committee play a special role in the field of dispute resolution between workers and employers, both individually and collectively. Unusually for UK legislation, the operation of the Employment Law system is broadly similar across the whole of the UK, although there are some differences in the common law between England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.