Matthew Amengual
Matthew Amengual
University of Oxford 


Contact: [email protected]  
​Oxford Page
Google Scholar

I am an Associate Professor in International Business at the University of Oxford, Saïd Business School. I am also an Official Fellow at Kellogg College and an affiliate of the Latin American Centre. Since 2018, I have been an Associate Editor at the Industrial & Labor Relations Review. 

Broadly, my work investigates the politics of promoting economic development that is both equitable and sustainable.  I have studied labor regulation in global supply chains for over a decade and continue to conduct research on how to improve working conditions in factories around the world.  

At Oxford, I teach in the MBA, EMBA, and various postgraduate programs.  I supervise doctoral students interested in political economy, international business, labor standards, and sustainability.

I hold a PhD in political science from MIT (2011).  After my doctoral studies, I joined the MIT faculty in the Sloan School of Management's Institute for Work and Employment Relations.  I taught at MIT until I came to Oxford in 2018. 

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Books 

Communities, Mines, and Distributive Politics: Direct Contestation in the Andes
Oxford University Press 2024

Politicized Enforcement in Argentina: Labor and Environmental Regulation
Cambridge University Press 2016
Excerpt of Introduction
Reviews: Journal of Politics, Industrial & Labor Relations Review. 
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Completed Working Papers

Cooperation and Punishment in Regulating Labor Standards: Evidence from the Gap Inc Supply Chain
with Greg Distelhorst 

​Order Overload? Demand Spikes and Labor Compliance in Global Supply Chains
with Greg Distelhorst

Exporting, Firm-specific Institutions, and Labor Conditions: Evidence from Garment Industry Workers
with Alessandro Guasti ​ and Greg Distelhorst

Can Training Improve Supplier Social Compliance? 
with Alessandro Guasti and Damian Raess

Journal Articles
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Global Markets, Corporate Assurances, and the Legitimacy of State Intervention: Perceptions of Distant Labor and Environmental Problems​
with Tim Bartley 
American Sociological Review, Volume: 87 Issue: 3, 2022. (open access)
Media: U.S. banned imports from China’s Xinjiang region. Will Americans object?, Monkey Cage, Washington Post
ASR Podcast on the article.

The ‘Court of Public Opinion:’ Public Perceptions of Business Involvement in Human Rights Violations
with Rita Mota & Alexander Rustler
Journal of Business Ethics (open access), 
Volume 185, pages 49–74, 2023. (open access)
Media: Public Opinion Is Not Enough to Hold Companies Accountable, Harvard Business Review.

True Motives: Prosocial and Instrumental Justifications for Behavioral Change in Organizations
with Evan Apfelbaum 
Management Science. Vol 67. No 8. August 2021. (published version)
Media: Feel-Good Messaging Won’t Always Motivate Your Employees, Harvard Business Review

Global Purchasing as Labor Regulation: The Missing Middle
​
with Greg Distelhorst & Danny Tobin. 
Industrial & Labor Relations Review, Vol 73, No 4, August 2020. (published version)

Special Issue: Labor Regulation in Global Supply Chains
Introduction: Improving Private Regulation of Labor in Global Supply Chains and Labor Standards: Theory and Evidence.  

with Sarosh Kuruvilla. 
Industrial & Labor Relations Review 2020. 

​Buying Stability:  The Distributive Outcomes of Firm Responses to Risk in the Bolivian Mining Industry 
World Development, Vol. 104, April, 2018. (published version)
winner of  the Best Paper Prize at REPAL 

Who Opposes Labor Regulation? Explaining Variation in Employers’ Opinions
with Salo Coslovsky & Duanyi Yang
Regulation & Governance, Vol, 11, No. 4. 2017. (published version)

Co-enforcing Labor Standards: The Unique Contributions of State and Worker Organizations in Argentina and the United States
with Janice Fine
Regulation & Governance, Vol, 11, No. 2., 2017.  (published version)

Reinforcing the State: Transnational and State Labor Regulation in Indonesia 
​with Laura Chirot
Industrial & Labor Relations Review Vol. 69, No. 5. 2016. (published version)

Pathways to Enforcement: Labor Inspectors Leveraging Linkages with Society in Argentina
Industrial & Labor Relations Review Vol. 67, No. 1, 2014 (published version) 

Pollution in the Garden of the Argentine Republic: Building State Capacity to Escape from Chaotic Regulation
Politics & Society. Vol. 41, No. 4, pp. 526-559, 2013 (published version)

Complementary Labor Regulation: The Uncoordinated Combination of State and Private Regulators in the Dominican Republic
World Development, Vol. 38, No. 3, 405-414, 2010. (published version)

Virtue out of Necessity?: Compliance, Commitment and the Improvement of Labor Conditions in Global Supply Chains
with Richard Locke and Akshay Mangla 
Politics & Society, Vol. 27, No. 2, pp. 319-351, 2009

Norms of deliberation: An inductive study
with Jane Mansbridge, Janette Hartz-Karp, and John Gastil
Journal of Public Deliberation Vol 2, No. 1. 2006

Other Research

The Social Determinants of Enforcement: Integrating Politics with Limited State Capacity
with Eduardo Dargent
in Daniel M. Brinks, Steven Levitsky and M. Victoria Murillo, eds., 
The Politics of Institutional Weakness in Latin America. New York: Cambridge University Press.

​Better Work and State Regulation in Indonesia: Towards Reinforcement 
with Laura Chirot
Research Brief, ILO Better Work Program, 2016

Cambios en la Capacidad del Estado Para Enfrentar Las Violaciones de las Normas Laborales: Los Talleres de Confección de Prendas de Vestir en Buenos Aires
Desarrollo Económico,  Vol 51, No. 20. 2011

Economic development and working conditions in export processing zones: A survey of trends
with William Milberg
International Labor Organization, Geneva 2008​