Human Capital, Fertility, and Economic Growth

Gary Becker, Kevin Murphy and Robert Tamura

Journal of Political Economy, 1990, vol. 98, issue 5, S12-37

Abstract: The authors' analysis of growth assumes endogenous fertility and a rising rate of return on human capital as the stock of human capital increases. When human capital is abundant, rates of return on human capital investments are high relative to rates of return on children, whereas, when human capital is scarce, rates of return on human capital are low relative to those on children. As a result, societies with limited human capital choose large families and invest little in each member; those with abundant human capital do the opposite. This leads to two stable steady states. One has large families and little human capital; the other has small families and perhaps growing human and physical capital. Copyright 1990 by University of Chicago Press.

Date: 1990
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (926)

Downloads: (external link)
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-3808%2819901 ... O%3B2-L&origin=repec full text (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers. See http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JPE for details.

Related works:
Chapter: Human Capital, Fertility, and Economic Growth (1994)
Working Paper: Human Capital, Fertility, and Economic Growth (1990)
Working Paper: Human Capital, Fertility, and Economic Growth
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:ucp:jpolec:v:98:y:1990:i:5:p:s12-37

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Political Economy from University of Chicago Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Journals Division ().