Sauder, Markus Ulrich (2007) Essays on the economics of child labour and child education. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

This thesis focuses on the economics of child labour and child education within developing
and developed countries.
The first part of the thesis examines child labour and child education in developing countries.
It investigates the motivations of parents to send their children to work and analyses
the so-called commitment problem of child labour in a dynamic, overlapping generations game
theoretical model. As a novelty, this model relaxes the requirement of an observable history
of play and models the decision problem as an overlapping generations cyclic game. We show
that first-best contracts may me implemented, implying optimal child education and low child
labour, if a bequest sanction can be imposed by grandparents. We also discuss the special role
that grandparents have within this model.
The second part of the thesis analyses the economics of child education within a developed
country context: the transmission of education across generations and the impact of a schooling
reform on educational choice and later outcomes. In a first chapter of this second part, we
examine specifically the influence of grandparents, as postulated by the model in part one, on
the education of grandchildren. A unique dataset on three generations, the National Child
Development Survey of the UK, is used. As a special feature, we apply recent econometric
techniques to deal with censoring in a semi-parametric setting. The results indicate that it is
not education but rather unobservable factors on the parent and grandparent level that affect
the educational choice of grandchildren. These unobservable factors may be interpreted as
innate ability or parenting skills. In a second chapter within this part, a schooling reform,
the introduction of comprehensive schools in the UK and its impact on educational and labour
market outcomes is evaluated. We find, using data from the National Child Development Survey
and applying a new, quasi-differenced matching estimator, that bias corrected estimates of the
reform suggest no effect on the means, but a sizeable effect on the variance of outcomes. We
interpret this finding as indicative of a higher risk inherent to the selective education system.
In summary the thesis sheds some new light on the economics of education and child
labour, both in a theoretical and an empirical context, and provides a valuable reference and
starting point for future research in this area.

Item Type:	Thesis or Dissertation (PhD)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Child labor -- Economic aspects, Education -- Economic aspects, Grandparents, Educational change -- Great Britain
Official Date:	July 2007
Dates:	Date Event July 2007 Submitted
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Department of Economics
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Dhillon, Amrita ; Walker, Ian, 1954-
Sponsors:	Economic and Social Research Council (Great Britain) (ESRC) (PTA-030-2004-00361) ; European Research and Training Network
Extent:	xvii, 269 leaves
Language:	eng

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