The recent theorical literature on the political economy of growth displays contrasting findings on the nature of the political link between income inequality and growth. In this paper, we explain this contrast and argue that in a democracy, when redistribution is in the form of government...

I develop a theory of technical progress that uncovers sufficient conditions for opposition to the adoption of child labor laws to disappear over time. The supply of child labor comes exclusively from unskilled parents, because of their inability to help their children benefit from formal...

This paper explores the dynamics of voting over mandatory education when parents allocate children's time between school and labor. When poverty keeps a sufficiently high number of children at work rather than in school, the availability of forms of child labor that provide skill-enhancimg...