IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp1514.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Trade and Child Labor: A General Equilibrium Analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Bandyopadhyay, Subhayu

    (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis)

  • Bandyopadhyay, Sudeshna C.

    (West Virginia University)

Abstract

This paper augments the existing literature on trade and child labor by exploring the effects of terms of trade changes in the context of a three good general equilibrium model, where one of the goods is a non-traded good. We find that under quasi-linear preferences the effect of the terms of trade on child labor depends critically on the pattern of substitutability (or complementarity) in the excess demand functions between the export good and the non-traded good. We extend the analysis to the case of homothetic preferences and find that the basic result is somewhat modified in a context where the marginal utility of income is affected by the terms of trade. We also extend the analysis to the case where factors move freely between the three goods as in a Heckscher-Ohlin type framework. Finally, we show that a balanced budget policy of taxing the education of skilled families and subsidizing the education of unskilled families must reduce child labor without any impact on aggregate welfare.

Suggested Citation

  • Bandyopadhyay, Subhayu & Bandyopadhyay, Sudeshna C., 2005. "Trade and Child Labor: A General Equilibrium Analysis," IZA Discussion Papers 1514, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
  • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1514
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp1514.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Edmonds, Eric V. & Pavcnik, Nina, 2006. "International trade and child labor: Cross-country evidence," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 115-140, January.
    2. Jean-Marie Baland & James A. Robinson, 2000. "Is Child Labor Inefficient?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(4), pages 663-679, August.
    3. Edmonds, Eric V. & Pavcnik, Nina, 2005. "The effect of trade liberalization on child labor," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 401-419, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Harald Grossmann & Jochen Michaelis, 2007. "Trade Sanctions and the Incidence of Child Labor," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 11(1), pages 49-62, February.
    2. Biswajit Chatterjee & Runa Ray, 2016. "Impact of Trade vs. Non-trade Policies on the Incidence of Child Labour," Foreign Trade Review, , vol. 51(4), pages 287-297, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Edmonds, Eric V. & Pavcnik, Nina, 2006. "International trade and child labor: Cross-country evidence," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 115-140, January.
    2. Eric V. Edmonds & Nina Pavcnik & Petia Topalova, 2010. "Trade Adjustment and Human Capital Investments: Evidence from Indian Tariff Reform," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(4), pages 42-75, October.
    3. Edmonds, Eric V., 2008. "Child Labor," Handbook of Development Economics, in: T. Paul Schultz & John A. Strauss (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 57, pages 3607-3709, Elsevier.
    4. Soumya Sahin & Ambar Nath Ghosh, 2016. "Effect of Ban on Exports Containing Child Labour in a Dynamic Model in Presence of Imperfect Monitoring," Foreign Trade Review, , vol. 51(1), pages 26-45, February.
    5. Tushi Baul & Susan L. Ostermann, 2023. "Legal knowledge and child labour in Nepal: Does knowing the law make a difference?," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 41(5), September.
    6. Zhao, Liqui & Wang, Fei & Zhao, Zhong, 2016. "Trade liberalisation and child labour in China," MERIT Working Papers 2016-054, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    7. Ebeke, Christian Hubert, 2012. "The power of remittances on the international prevalence of child labor," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 452-462.
    8. Edmonds & Eric V. & Pavcnik, Nina, 2004. "Product market integration and household labor supply in a poor economy: evidence from Vietnam," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3234, The World Bank.
    9. Kis-Katos, Krisztina & Sparrow, Robert, 2009. "Child work and schooling under trade liberalization in Indonesia," Proceedings of the German Development Economics Conference, Frankfurt a.M. 2009 17, Verein für Socialpolitik, Research Committee Development Economics.
    10. Fioroni, Tamara, 2014. "Health and Child Labour," MPRA Paper 58789, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Heather Congdon Fors, 2014. "Social Globalization and Child Labor: A Cross-country Analysis," The Developing Economies, Institute of Developing Economies, vol. 52(2), pages 125-153, June.
    12. Sarbajit Chaudhuri & Jayanta Kumar Dwibedi, 2006. "Trade Liberalization in Agriculture in Developed Nations and Incidence of Child Labour in a Developing Economy," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(2), pages 129-150, April.
    13. Lou, Jing & Li, Jie, 2022. "Export expansion and intergenerational education mobility: Evidence from China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    14. Tang, Can & Zhao, Zhong, 2023. "Informal institution meets child development: Clan culture and child labor in China," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(1), pages 277-294.
    15. Neumayer, Eric & de Soysa, Indra, 2005. "Trade Openness, Foreign Direct Investment and Child Labor," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 43-63, January.
    16. Ponczek, Vladimir Pinheiro & Souza, André Portela Fernandes de, 2007. "The causal effect of family size on child labor and education," Textos para discussão 162, FGV EESP - Escola de Economia de São Paulo, Fundação Getulio Vargas (Brazil).
    17. Anna De Paoli & Mariapia Mendola, 2017. "International Migration and Child labour in Developing Countries," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(4), pages 678-702, April.
    18. Eugenia Fotoniata & Thomas Moutos, 2013. "Product Quality, Informality, and Child Labor," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(2), pages 268-283, May.
    19. Michaël Bonnal, 2010. "Export Performance, Labor Standards and Institutions: Evidence from a Dynamic Panel Data Model," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 31(1), pages 53-66, March.
    20. Christophe J. Nordman & Smriti Sharma & Naveen Sunder, 2022. "Here Comes the Rain Again: Productivity Shocks, Educational Investments, and Child Work," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 70(3), pages 1041-1063.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    child labor; non-traded goods; substitutability or complementarity; terms of trade;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F1 - International Economics - - Trade
    • O19 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - International Linkages to Development; Role of International Organizations

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1514. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.