Let me inform you of the following online research seminar.

Date: August 13, 2021
Time: 16:30-18:00
Venue: Online Seminar in Zoom
Speaker: Koki Kanazawa (Graduate School of Economics, Kobe University)
Organizer: Takuya Hasebe
Language: Japanese

Title: The Hidden Impact of International Financial Aid on Child Labor in African Countries (jointly with Jun Goto)

Abstract: Whether international development assistance to developing countries is an effective tool for poverty reduction has traditionally been a major topic in development economics. However, few studies shed light on human rights abuse involved by international development projects. We examine whether development assistance projects increase child labor in local project sites. To do so, we geographically combine child-level data of seven African countries from the Demographic and Health Survey Program with a project-level data of Chinese financial aid. We adopt a difference-in-differences strategy: the first variation comes from a comparison between areas where development projects are underway and areas that will be involved in the future; the second variation comes from a comparison of whether or not the development project is implemented within 5 km of a residential area. The estimation results show that Chinese financial aid significantly increases child labor in project sites and this effect lasts at least for several years. Combining additional results confirming no impacts of World Bank projects on child labor, the results suggest that it is necessary to ensure that each donor follows international rules to prevent human rights violations in local development projects.

* Please contact the coordinators via email, if you'd like to participate in the online seminar.