In recent years, a number of governments and consumer groups in rich countries have tried to discourage the use of child labor in poor countries through measures such as product boycotts and the imposition of international labor standards. The purported objective of such measures is to reduce...

Most normative studies on child labour arrive at the conclusion that child labour is detrimental to social welfare. Child labour is, however, still prevalent in many developing countries even though in many of these countries it is forbidden by law. In this paper we develop a political-economic...

This article studies the effects of child labor legislation on human capital accumulation and the distribution of wealth and welfare. We calibrate our model to U.S. data circa 1880 and find that the consequences of restricting child labor or providing tax-financed education depend on the main...

The paper demonstrates that the standard policy for controlling child labor by imposing a fine on firms caught employing children can cause child labor to rise. This 'pathological' reaction is, however, reversed as the size of the fine increases

We develop a positive theory of the adoption of child labor laws. Workers who compete with children in the labor market support the introduction of a child labor ban, unless their own working children provide a large fraction of family income. Since child labor income depends on family size,...

Child labor is a persistent phenomenon in many developing countries. In recent years, support has been growing among rich-country governments and consumer groups for the use of trade policies, such as product boycotts and the imposition of international labor standards, to reduce child labor in...