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Child Labor and the Education of a Society

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Author Info
Bell, Clive (South Asia Institute, University of Heidelberg)
Gersbach, Hans () (Alfred Weber Institute, University of Heidelberg and IZA, Bonn)

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Abstract

We examine economic growth, inequality and education when the wellspring of growth is the formation of human capital through a combination of the quality of child-rearing and formal schooling. The existence of multiple steady states is established, including a poverty trap, wherein children work full-time and no human capital accumulation takes place, with continuous growth at an asymptotically steady rate as an alternative. We show that a society can escape from the poverty trap into a condition of continuous growth through a program of taxes and transfers. Temporary inequality is a necessary condition to escape in finite time, but long-run inequalities are avoidable provided sufficiently heavy, but temporary taxes can be imposed on the better-off. Programs aiming simply at high attendance rates in the present can be strongly non-optimal.

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File URL: ftp://repec.iza.org/RePEc/Discussionpaper/dp338.pdf
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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in its series IZA Discussion Papers with number 338.

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Length: 49 pages
Date of creation: Aug 2001
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Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp338

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Related research
Keywords: Child labor; growth and inequality; education; human capital; redistributive policies; poverty traps;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
H2 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue
I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education
O1 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development
O41 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - One, Two, and Multisector Growth Models

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  1. Clive Bell & Hans Gersbach, 2006. "Growth and Enduring Epidemic Diseases," CESifo Working Paper Series CESifo Working Paper No. , CESifo Group Munich. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Clive Bell & Shantayanan Devarajan & Hans Gersbach, 2003. "The long-run economic costs of AIDS : theory and an application to South Africa," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3152, The World Bank. [Downloadable!]
  3. Sandro Maffei & Nikolai Raabe & Heinrich Ursprung, 2004. "Political Repression and Child Labor: Theory and Empirical Evidence," CESifo Working Paper Series CESifo Working Paper No. , CESifo Group Munich. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  4. Hans Gersbach & Felix Mühe, 2008. "Vote-Buying and Growth," Economics working paper series 08/94, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich. [Downloadable!]
  5. Patrick M. Emerson & Andre Portela Souza, 2002. "Bargaining over Sons and Daughters: Child Labor, School Attendance and Intra-Household Gender Bias in Brazil," Working Papers 0213, Department of Economics, Vanderbilt University. [Downloadable!]
  6. Ramona Schrepler, 2003. "Child Labor and Fertility," HEW 0310001, EconWPA, revised 26 Feb 2004. [Downloadable!]
  7. Hans Gersbach & Lars Siemers, 2005. "Can Democracy Educate a Society?," IZA Discussion Papers 1693, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
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This page was last updated on 2009-11-23.

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