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Child Labor and Coordination Failures

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Abstract

In this paper, we show how coordination failures may explain the prevalence of child labor in developing countries. We do so within a simple game-theoretic setup. Child labor arises in our environment because of the lack of a coordination mechanism between parental decisions to invest in the human capital of their children and firm's decisions to invest in skill-intensive technology. Governmental policies that help coordinate expectations lead to the disappearance of child labor.

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  • Sylvain Dessy & Stephane Pallage, 2000. "Child Labor and Coordination Failures," Cahiers de recherche CREFE / CREFE Working Papers 109, CREFE, Université du Québec à Montréal.
    • Handle: RePEc:cre:crefwp:109
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Child labor; welfare; equilibrium selection; coordination;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I20 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - General
    • J20 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - General
    • D60 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - General
    • O30 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - General

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