The Sweatshop Dilemma

The perennial debate about whether low-wage, arduous and often hazardous work in light manufacturing is beneficial to those employed in such jobs has been given a new twist.

Tim Harford reports here on a randonmised controlled trial in the fast-growing country of Ethiopia in which one group was given cash (with no strings attached) and five days of enterprise training instead of the job they had applied for. The results are complicated but hint that direct cash transfers and small-scale investment in human capital can yield significant results.

You can access the key findings of this research report here