Title: Trade Liberalization: Child Labor in China

Speaker: Professor Zhong Zhao, School of Labor and Human Resources, Renmin University of China

Time: February 26th, 2016 15:00–16:30

Venue: Room 102, Zhonghui Building (College of Economics, JNU)

Abstract: 

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.