The macroeconomics of child labor regulation

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Doepke, M; Zilibotti, F
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California Los Angeles; Stockholm University
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/000282805775014425
• 发表日期: 2005
• 页码: 1492-1524
• 关键词: SCHOOL ATTENDANCE; fertility; decline; GROWTH; LAWS

摘要

We develop a positive theory of the adoption of child labor laws. Workers who compete with children in the labor market support a child labor ban, unless their own working children provide a large fraction of family income. Fertility decisions lock agents into specific political preferences, and multiple steady states can arise. The introduction of child labor laws can be triggered by skill-biased technological change, which induces parents to choose smaller families. The theory can account for the observation that, in Britain, regulations were first introduced after a period of rising wage inequality, and coincided with rapid fertility decline.