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You Get What You Pay For: Schooling Incentives and Child Labor

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  • Eric V. Edmonds
  • Maheshwor Shrestha

Abstract

Can efforts to promote education deter child labor? We report on the findings of a field experiment where a conditional transfer incentivized the schooling of children associated with carpet factories in Nepal. We find that schooling increases and child involvement in carpet weaving decreases when schooling is incentivized. As a simple static labor supply model would predict, we observe that treated children resort to their counterfactual level of school attendance and carpet weaving when schooling is no longer incentivized. From a child labor policy perspective, our findings imply that "You get what you pay for" when schooling incentives are used to combat hazardous child labor.

Suggested Citation

  • Eric V. Edmonds & Maheshwor Shrestha, 2013. "You Get What You Pay For: Schooling Incentives and Child Labor," NBER Working Papers 19279, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19279
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    JEL classification:

    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
    • J88 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Standards - - - Public Policy
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration

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