In part he believes that the problem is economic institutions: regulatory barriers to entrepreneurship, a financial system that favours insiders, and a high level of input from labour, which tends to be biased towards the status quo.

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Suppose, he says, that a developing country exports goods made with adult labour, but relies on an input made in an unregulated industry using child workers.

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While companies faced growing pressure from rising costs of input materials, including fuel, food and labour, that was not matched by rising output prices.

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Because it is often human input that makes the products of these industries valuable, cutting labour would be self-defeating.

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