 COMPLEMENTS VERSUS SUBSTITUTES AND TRENDS IN FERTILITY CHOICE IN DYNASTIC MODELSLarry Jones and Alice Schoonbroodt International Economic Review, 2010, vol. 51, issue 3, 671-699 Abstract: Demographers emphasize decreased mortality and "economic development" as the main contributors generating the demographic transition. Contrary to previous findings, we show that simple dynastic models à la Barro-Becker can reproduce observed changes in fertility in response to decreased mortality and increased productivity growth if the intertemporal elasticity of substitution is low enough. We show that this is largely due to number and welfare of children being substitutes in the utility of parents in this case. We find that with an IES of one-third, model predictions of changes in fertility amount to two-thirds of those observed in U.S. data since 1800. Copyright (2010) by the Economics Department of the University of Pennsylvania and the Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association. Date: 2010 There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it. Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ier:iecrev:v:51:y:2010:i:3:p:671-699 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article International Economic Review is currently edited by Harold L. Cole More articles in International Economic Review from Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association 160 McNeil Building, 3718 Locust Walk, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6297. Contact information at EDIRC. |
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