@techreport{NBERw19602, title = "Perverse Consequences of Well
Intentioned Regulation: Evidence from India's Child Labor Ban",
author = "Prashant Bharadwaj and Leah K. Lakdawala and Nicholas
Li", institution = "National Bureau of Economic Research", type
= "Working Paper", series = "Working Paper Series", number =
"19602", year = "2013", month = "October", URL =
"http://www.nber.org/papers/w19602", abstract = {While bans
against child labor are a common policy tool, there is very
little empirical evidence validating their effectiveness. In
this paper, we examine the consequences of India’s landmark
legislation against child labor, the Child Labor (Prohibition
and Regulation) Act of 1986. Using data from employment surveys
conducted before and after the ban, and using age restrictions
that determined who the ban applied to, we show that child wages
decrease and child labor increases after the ban. These results
are consistent with a theoretical model building on the seminal
work of Basu and Van (1998) and Basu