Law and Markets
Considerable attention is paid by governments, regulators, and legal scholars to questions of how law can be used to improve the governance of markets, such as through the introduction of financial regulations, or by strengthening social and economic rights to achieve desirable social ends. Projects in this stream seek to explore the myriad ways in which markets are already predicated upon and operationalised through legal regimes that are rarely problematised, or even visible, in regulatory approaches to market governance, such as through contract law, or through criminal law. Researchers in this stream are also in dialogue with economic theory, and with other scholarly traditions that seek to understand the nature of markets and their roles in society.
The research stream also analyses the complex and multi-layered relationship between social rights and markets. We are interested in how the relationship between social rights and markets might be conceptualised, and how conflict and competition between the two might be theorised.
One particular branch of this research looks at labour law and labour markets. Building on the findings of the ‘Constitution and Work’ project, this new project aims to deepen understandings of the ways in which contractual practices in the world of work are shaped by the social and economic institutional context and, especially, by collective structures of regulation and representation. Research in this field connects both to the ‘Constitution, Work and the Political economy’ theme as well as the ERC funded project ‘Work on Demand’.