Made in Dignity: the Effects of Labelling on Child Labour

Modelling Impact of Social Labelling on Child Labour

By: Duprez C & Baland JM
Produced by: The European Development Research Network (EUDN) 2004

This paper analyses the impact of both social and geographical labelling on child labour. A simple model of North-South trade is developed, which show that social labelling will not have any effects in several cases:

• Both free entry in the labelled sector and demand from unconcerned consumers may, in fact, prevent prices, and hence child labour, from varying
• As for geographical labelling, a simple model, in which the North discriminates between the products made in two different Southern countries, shows that a geographical label necessarily leads to a mixed result when both Southern countries are quite similar
• In fact, either child labour decreases in the more favoured country, and worldwide child labour increases, or the contrary is the case.