Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Abstinence from Child Labor and Profit Seeking

Contents:

Author Info

  • Ronald B. Davies

    () (University of Oregon Economics Department)

Abstract

Some firms voluntarily abstain from using child labor, presumably in response to concerns about the welfare of overseas child workers. These firms do not, however, support banning the imports of competitors’ products manufactured with child labor. As an explanation of this seemingly contradictory behavior, I consider a setting in which two firms engage in Bertrand competition for consumers who vary in the value they place on goods made without child labor. When the firms differentiate themselves according to their labor input, both enjoy greater profits. If imports using child labor are banned, this reduces the profits of both firms. Similar results can also arise in a many firm setting. If charitable donations to education foundations raise the cost of child labor, this too can arise as a purely profitseeking activity by adult labor firms. Thus, while the adult-labor firms engage in seemingly altruistic behavior, they may do so not out of regard for children but rather for their own profits.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: http://economics.uoregon.edu/papers/UO-2000-1_Davies_Child_Labor.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by University of Oregon Economics Department in its series University of Oregon Economics Department Working Papers with number 2000-1.

as in new window
Length: 27
Date of creation: 01 Jul 2000
Date of revision: 01 Aug 2002
Handle: RePEc:ore:uoecwp:2000-1

Contact details of provider:
Postal: 1285 University of Oregon, 435 PLC, Eugene, OR 97403-1285
Phone: (541) 346-4661
Fax: (541) 346-1243
Email:
Web page: http://economics.uoregon.edu/
More information through EDIRC

Related research

Keywords: Child labor; product differentiation;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:

References

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
as in new window
  1. Caplin, A. & Nalebuff, B., 1989. "Aggregation And Imperfect Competition: On The Existence Of Equilibrium," Discussion Papers 1989_30, Columbia University, Department of Economics.
  2. Chiu, W Henry, 1998. "Income Inequality, Human Capital Accumulation and Economic Performance," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(446), pages 44-59, January.
  3. Grossman, G.M. & Helpman, E., 1992. "Protection for Sale," Papers 21-92, Tel Aviv.
  4. Ranjan, Priya, 2001. "Credit constraints and the phenomenon of child labor," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 81-102, February.
  5. Basu, Kaushik & Van, Pham Hoang, 1998. "The Economics of Child Labor," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(3), pages 412-27, June.
  6. Basu, Kaushik, 1998. "Child labor : cause, consequence, and cure, with remarks on International Labor Standards," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2027, The World Bank.
  7. Galor, Oded & Zeira, Joseph, 1993. "Income Distribution and Macroeconomics," Review of Economic Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(1), pages 35-52, January.
  8. Rogers Carol Ann & Swinnerton Kenneth A, 2005. "A Theory of Exploitative Child Labor," Labor and Demography 0510006, EconWPA.
  9. Andreoni, James, 1990. "Impure Altruism and Donations to Public Goods: A Theory of Warm-Glow Giving?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 100(401), pages 464-77, June.
  10. Lutz, Stefan & Lyon, Thomas P & Maxwell, John W, 1998. "Strategic Quality Choice with Minimum Quality Standards," CEPR Discussion Papers 1793, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  11. Maskus, Keith E., 1997. "Should core labor standards be imposed through international trade policy?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1817, The World Bank.
  12. Mouritsen, Jan & Ernst, Jesper & Jørgensen, Aksel Møller, 2000. "'Green' certification as a managerial technology," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 167-187, June.
  13. Degryse, H.A., 1996. "On the interaction between vertical and horizontal product differentiation: An application to banking," Open Access publications from Tilburg University urn:nbn:nl:ui:12-72562, Tilburg University.
  14. Kimberly Ann Elliott & Richard B. Freeman, 2003. "Can Labor Standards Improve under Globalization?," Peterson Institute Press: All Books, Peterson Institute for International Economics, number 338, 1st quart.
  15. Helmut Bester, 1998. "Quality Uncertainty Mitigates Product Differentiation," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 29(4), pages 828-844, Winter.
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 in new window

Cited by:
  1. Matthias Doepke & Fabrizio Zilibotti, 2009. "Do International Labor Standards Contribute to the Persistence of the Child Labor Problem?," NBER Working Papers 15050, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  2. Eric Edmonds, 2007. "Child Labor," Working Papers id:988, eSocialSciences.
  3. Jean Marie Baland & Cedric Duprez, 2008. "Are Fair Trade Labels Effective Against Child Labor?," Working Papers id:1559, eSocialSciences.
  4. Fanelli, Domenico, 2008. "A Two-Stage Duopoly Game with Ethical Labeling and Price Competition when Consumers differ in Preferences," MPRA Paper 11544, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  5. Fanelli, Domenico, 2010. "The Role of Socially Concerned Consumers in the Coexistence of Ethical and Standard Firms," MPRA Paper 20117, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  6. Kaushik Basu & Homa Zarghamee, 2008. "Product boycott a good idea for controlling child labor? A theoretical investigation," Indian Statistical Institute, Planning Unit, New Delhi Discussion Papers 08-09, Indian Statistical Institute, New Delhi, India.
  7. Basu, Kaushik & Zarghamee, Homa, 2009. "Is product boycott a good idea for controlling child labor? A theoretical investigation," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(2), pages 217-220, March.
  8. Baland, Jean-Marie & Duprez, Cédric, 2009. "Are labels effective against child labor?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(11-12), pages 1125-1130, December.
  9. D'Alessandro, Simone & Fanelli, Domenico, 2009. "The Role of Income Distribution in the Diffusion of Corporate Social Responsibility," MPRA Paper 18659, University Library of Munich, Germany.

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ore:uoecwp:2000-1

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Bill Harbaugh).

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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

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