A theoretical model is advanced that demonstrates that, if teacher and student attendance generate a shared good, then teacher and student attendance will be mutually reinforcing. Using data from the Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan, empirical evidence supporting that proposition is...

In 1975 Theodore W. Schultz suggested that the returns to human capital are highest in economic environments experiencing unexpected price, productivity, and technology shocks that create “disequilibria.” In such environments, the ability of firms and individuals to adapt their resource...

The proportion of U.S. high school students working during the school year ranges from 23% in the freshman year to 75% in the senior year. This study estimates how cumulative work histories during the high school years affect probability of dropout, high school academic performance, and the...

T.W. Schultz (1975) proposed that returns to human capital were highest in economic environments where technology, price or production shocks were common and managerial skills to adapt resource allocations to those shocks were most in need. We hypothesize that variation in returns to human...

For the first thirteen years after entry, the hazard rate for firm exits is persistently higher for urban than for rural firms. While differences in observed industry market, local market, and firm attributes explain some of the rural/urban gap in firm survival, rural firms retain a survival...

Consistent with its focus on social policies, Sri Lanka has devoted significant attention to worker protection. One of the main pillars of its worker protection policy is the Termination of Employment of Workman Act (TEWA) introduced in 1971. The act aims to limit unemployment by raising the...

The authors evaluate the effects of idiosyncratic shocks to a father's income on his children's probability of dropping out of school, entering the labor market, or failing to advance to the next grade level. Their analysis uses a large rotating panel data set containing information on household...

The authors use a unique data set on language, and mathematics test scores for third, and fourth graders in eleven different Latin American countries, to determine whether child labor raises or lowers school achievement. Their findings are amazingly consistent across countries. In every country,...

Using country-level data, this report lays out the broad stylized facts regarding the relationship between child labor and per capita GDP, adult literacy, and the share of agriculture in the economy. The relationship between child labor force participation and per capita income is convex and...

The authors use a unique data set on adult earnings in Brazil to study how child labor affects adult earnings through its impacts on work experience, years of schooling, and human capital attained per year of schooling. Adding up these positive and negative effects, their empirical findings...