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Eric V. Edmonds

Dartmouth College and NBER, USA, and IZA, Germany

I appreciate the opportunity to participate in the World of Labor project. World of Labor is an exciting opportunity for researchers and policy decision makers to engage in a substantive format

IZA World of Labor role

Author, Topic spokesperson

Current position

Professor of Economics, Dartmouth College, USA

Research interest

Child labor

Website

http://bit.ly/Edmonds_IZApage

Positions/functions as a policy advisor

US Department of Agriculture and US Department of Labor, Consultative Group to Eliminate the Use of Child Labor and Forced Labor in Imported Agricultural Products (2009–2012); International Labor Organization, Implications of Child Labor Research for Social Protection Floors (2011–2012); US Government Interagency Evidence Review Team for Summit on Children Outside Family Care (2011)

Qualifications

PhD Economics, Princeton University, 1999

Selected publications

  • “Independent child labor migration.” In: Constant, A., and K. Zimmermann (eds). International Handbook of the Economics of Migration. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2013 (with M. Shrestha).

  • “The impact of minimum age of employment regulation on child labor and schooling.” IZA Journal of Labor Policy (December 2012) (with M. Shrestha).

  • “Poverty alleviation and child labor.” American Economic Journal: Economic Policy (November 2012) (with N. Schady).

  • “Trade adjustment and human capital investments: Evidence from Indian tariff reform.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics (October 2010) (with N. Pavcnik and P. Topalova).

  • “Child labor.” In: Shultz, T. P., and J. Strauss (eds). Handbook of Development Economics. Vol. 4. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2008.

article(s)

  • Does minimum age of employment regulation reduce child labor?

    The global fight against child labor might be better served by focusing less on existing laws and more on implementation and enforcement

    Eric V. Edmonds, July 2014
    Regulation of the minimum age of employment is the dominant tool used to combat child labor globally. If enforced, these regulations can change the types of work in which children participate, but minimum age regulations are not a useful tool to promote education. Despite their nearly universal adoption, recent research for 59 developing countries finds little evidence that these regulations influence child time allocation in a meaningful way. Going forward, coordinating compulsory schooling laws and minimum age of employment regulations may help maximize the joint influence of these regulations on child time allocation, but these regulations should not be the focus of the global fight against child labor.
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