Is a significant socio-economic structural change a pre-requisite for `initial' fertility decline in the LDCs? Evidence from Thailand based on a multivariate cointegration/vector error correction modelling approach

Abul Masih and Rumi Masih
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Rumi Masih: Faculty of Economics and Politics, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 9DD, England

Journal of Population Economics, 1999, vol. 12, issue 3, 463-487

Abstract: This study is the first attempt at placing the analysis of fertility in a temporal dynamic framework in the case of a developing Asian economy such as Thailand by binding the relationship between fertility and its determinants within a cointegrated system. The analysis is based on the application of the following recently developed dynamic time series techniques: cointegration, vector error-correction modelling, variance decompositions and the impulse response functions. The results tend to indicate that in the complex dynamic interactions, the importance of the conventional `structural' hypothesis as a significant factor in bringing fertility down in the longer term cannot be denied. However, in the short to longer term, our findings, although not fully supportive of any particular hypothesis, appear to be broadly consistent more with the hypothesis emphasising the critical role played by the `ideational' or diffusion forces along with the demographic variables in ensuring `initial' fertility decline than with the conventional `structural' hypothesis emphasising a significant socio-economic structural change as a pre-condition for `initial' fertility decline.

Keywords: Fertility; ·; vector; error-correction; model; ·; variance; decomposition (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C52 J13 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1999-08-16
Note: Received: 7 April 1995/Accepted: 15 May 1998
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