A novel way of measuring the endowment effect of gaining a child

Stella Luz Quimbo (), Xylee Javier, Joseph Capuno and Emmanuel de Dios ()
Additional contact information
Xylee Javier: University of the Philippines School of Economics

Philippine Review of Economics, 2016, vol. 53, issue 1, 56-71

Abstract: We test, using national survey data on Filipino women, whether stated fertility preferences are stable and, thus, reliable measures of choice. We compare the expressed ideal number of children of two groups of matched women with that of another group having arguably more stable preferences. Using propensity score matching, we find that the stated ideal number of children is significantly higher than the control group with presumed stable preferences, by about 1 child among the poor and among older women. This difference suggest instability in fertility preferences, which may be due to moving fertility targets, cognitive dissonance or anomalous choice behavior arising from status-quo bias, or endowment effects, with the prohibitive cost of “giving up” additional children causing an upward adjustment of fertility targets.

Keywords: fertility preferences; endowment effects (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D13 I12 J13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://pre.econ.upd.edu.ph/index.php/pre/article/view/935/836 (application/pdf)

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:phs:prejrn:v:53:y:2016:i:1:p:56-71

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Philippine Review of Economics from University of the Philippines School of Economics and Philippine Economic Society Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by HR Rabe ().