How to Deal with Covert Child Labour, and Give Children an Effective Education, in a Poor Developing Country : An Optimal Taxation Problem with Moral Hazard

Abstract

As the return to education (and possibly also parental income) is uncertain, and given that the work a child does covertly for his own parents, and transfers between parents and children, are private information, the government should make school enrollment compulsory, set a legal limit (decreasing in parental income) on overt child labour, and redistribute across families using a flat-rate education grant, and a tax on parental income. That done, it should use a scholarship increasing in school results, and a tax on the skill premium, to raise the expected return to educational investment, and make it less uncertain.child labour, education, uncertainty, moral hazard