Child labor and the education of a society

• Verfasst von: Bell, Clive
• Verfasst von: Gersbach, Hans
• Titel: Child labor and the education of a society
• Verf.angabe: Clive Bell; Hans Gersbach
• Verlagsort: Bonn
• Verlag: IZA
• Jahr: 2001
• Umfang: 36, 6 S
• Illustrationen: graph. Darst
• Gesamttitel/Reihe: Discussion paper series / Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit ; 338
• Sprache: eng
• Bibliogr. Hinweis: Erscheint auch als : Online-Ausgabe: Bell, Clive, 1943 - : Child labor and the education of a society. - Bonn : Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), 2001. - Online-Ressource ([1], 36, 6 S.)
• Bibliogr. Hinweis: Überarbeitung als: Bell, Clive, 1943 - : Child labor and the education of a society
• Form-SW: Arbeitspapier
• Form-SW: Graue Literatur
• K10plus-PPN: 338009361

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.