Family policy and the number of children: Evidence from a natural experiment

Peter Egger and Doina Radulescu

European Journal of Political Economy, 2012, vol. 28, issue 4, 524-539

Abstract: This paper analyzes the effects of family policy on the number of children. A natural experiment which changed regional family policy dramatically was Saarland's reaccession to Germany in 1957. Prior to this date, Saarland was part of France. After 1957, families in Saarland were subject to spouse income splitting instead of the previous family income splitting and other aspects of family policy also changed fundamentally with Saarland's reaccession to Germany. We identify the causal impact of this change by using panel data on newborn children in 45 municipalities in Saarland, and 350 municipalities in surrounding regions in Germany and France. The results suggest that the change in family policy associated with Saarland's reaccession to Germany led to a reduction of births by about one-fifth.

Keywords: Family policy; Income splitting; Natural experiment; Fertility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C21 H24 J13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0176268012000341
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:poleco:v:28:y:2012:i:4:p:524-539

DOI: 10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2012.05.006

Access Statistics for this article

European Journal of Political Economy is currently edited by J. De Haan, A. L. Hillman and H. W. Ursprung

More articles in European Journal of Political Economy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().