Globally, 152 million children are involved in economic activities. Poverty is the main cause of child labor, and the lack of social norms and inadequate legal systems are contributing factors. In order to understand the cause of child labor and provide appropriate assistance, this paper focuses on the accumulation of human capital and social capital. The first part of the paper shows that, historically, child labor has been highly dependent on the initial endowments of human capital and social capital. We also show that the condition of bifurcation from an identical initial condition depends on the productivity derived from social capital. The second part of the paper examines the effect of development aid in recipient countries, particularly the effect of two types of programs that attempt to eliminate child labor and provide support to strengthen social capital. We show that both programs are effective at making the economy better off. However, large amounts of development aid for the program that strengthens social capital can make the economy of middle-income countries worse off.

中文翻译：

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童工、社会资本和经济发展*

全球有 1.52 亿儿童参与经济活动。贫困是童工现象的主要原因，社会规范的缺失和法律制度的不完善是促成因素。为了解童工现象的成因并提供相应的帮助，本文着眼于人力资本和社会资本的积累。论文的第一部分表明，从历史上看，童工一直高度依赖于人力资本和社会资本的初始禀赋。我们还表明，从相同的初始条件分叉的条件取决于源自社会资本的生产力。论文的第二部分考察了发展援助对受援国的影响，特别是试图消除童工和提供支持以加强社会资本的两类计划的效果。我们表明，这两个计划都可以有效地使经济变得更好。然而，为加强社会资本的计划提供的大量发展援助可能会使中等收入国家的经济状况恶化。