Replication Data for: Courting Informal Workers: Exclusion, Forbearance, and the Left

Leftist governments with strong links to organized labor are expected to increase the number of people protected by job security rules. But do they? I explore whether the Left in power at the local level in Brazil cracks down on enterprises that employ non-contract, informal-sector workers, and implements policies aimed at reducing the size of the informal sector. With a close-election regression-discontinuity design, I show that mayors from the Workers’ Party (PT) in fact slow down enforcement and improve conditions in the informal sector, rather than encouraging a shift to formal jobs. This reflects a challenge that leftist parties face across the world: how to simultaneously improve the employment prospects and conditions of workers in precarious employment and those in full-time jobs in the context of increased global competition, segmented labor markets and, in Latin America, truncated welfare states.