We examine agricultural child labor in the context of emigration, transfers, and the ability to hire outside labor. We start by developing a theoretical background based on Basu and Van, (1998), Basu, (1999, 2000) and Epstein and Kahana (2008) and show how hiring labor from outside the household...

Regulation of the minimum age of employment is the dominant tool used to combat child labor globally. If enforced, these regulations can change the types of work in which children participate, but minimum age regulations are not a useful tool to promote education. Despite their nearly universal...

This study uses a nationally representative survey to analyze a key survey design decision in child labor measurement: self-reporting versus proxy interviewing. The child/proxy disagreement affects 20 percent of the sample, which translates into a 17.1 percentage point difference in the national...

Child labor is often condemned as a form of exploitation. I explore how the notion of exploitation, as used in everyday language, can be made precise in economic models of child labor. Exploitation is defined relative to a specific social welfare function. I first show that under the standard...

This paper examines the impact of state level political reservation for two minority groups - Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes - on child labor in India. We estimate the effect of political reservation on child labor by exploiting the state variation in the share of seats reserved for the...

One of the most salient features of developing economies is the existence of a large informal sector. This paper uses quantitative theory to study the dynamic implications of informality on wage inequality, human capital accumulation, child labor and long-run growth. Our model can generate...