Inducing fertility change: A game-theoretic approach

Oded Stark

European Journal of Population, 1986, vol. 2, issue 1, No 3, 42 pages

Abstract: Abstract This paper explores the inducement of fertility change in situations where actual fertility levels do not coincide with socially optimal fertility levels. The motivating example is that of higher than socially optimal levels of fertility in LDCs, but the approach is equally applicable to contexts of lower than socially optimal levels of fertility in DCs. The paper proposes a prisoner's dilemma characterization of higher than socially optimal levels of fertility in LDCs and offers a resolution of the dilemma, and hence a possible route to fertility-reduction policies, through the generation of mutual altruism. The prisoner's dilemma characterization hinges on the assumption that there is some social sharing of the costs associated with a given level of fertility but less or none with respect to the benefits. The mutual altruism solution depends on representing an agent's preferences as a specific convex combination of his/her and the other agent's original utilities. The unique critical level of such altruism is identified and hence a stopping rule is provided. Several examples from the array of extensions and possible implications of this approach are discussed briefly.

Date: 1986
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/BF01796879 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:spr:eurpop:v:2:y:1986:i:1:d:10.1007_bf01796879

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/10680

DOI: 10.1007/BF01796879

Access Statistics for this article

European Journal of Population is currently edited by Helga A.G. de Valk

More articles in European Journal of Population from Springer, European Association for Population Studies
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().