This paper exploits a quasi-natural experiment, i.e., the U.S. granting of Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) to China after China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), to examine whether trade liberalization affects child labor in China. PNTR permanently set U.S. duties on Chinese imports at low NTR levels and removed the uncertainty associated with annual renewals of China's NTR status. We find that the PNTR was significantly associated with the rising incidence of child labor in China. One percentage point decrease in average export tariff raises the odds of child labor by 1.5 percentage points.
赵忠，现任中国人民大学劳动人事学院副院长，教授，博士生导师。他于1991年获得中国人民大学经济学学士学位，2002年获得美国约翰·霍普金斯大学经 济学博士学位。在加入中国人民大学之前，赵忠曾担任德国劳动研究（IZA, Bonn）高级研究员（Senior Research Associate）。他还曾在云南省财政厅和北京大学工作，并在美国南加州大学、荷兰丁伯根研究所和英国诺丁汉大学做过访问。赵忠的研究兴趣包括劳动经 济学、公共政策与社会项目评估、应用微观计量经济学、卫生经济学和中国经济，研究成果见诸于《经济研究》、《经济学季刊》、《管理世界》、《世界经济》、 Review of Economics and Statistics、Journal of Population Economics、Journal of the Royal Statistical Society (Series A)、Journal of Comparative Economics、Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization、Review of Income and Wealth和Economics Letters等国内外期刊。
