Towards an Agent-Based Model of the Economic Development Process: The Dynamics of the Fertility Rate

Gianfranco Giulioni () and Edgardo Bucciarelli ()
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Gianfranco Giulioni: University of Chieti-Pescara
Edgardo Bucciarelli: University of Chieti-Pescara

A chapter in Progress in Artificial Economics, 2010, pp 229-240 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract This paper is a first step to build an agent-based model of the economic development process. We focus on households’ behavior by studying in particular the relationship between the available income and the optimal choice on quantity (fertility) and quality (level of education) of children. A collection of households taking decisions according to the rules identified at the individual level, but perturbed by idiosyncratic shocks and subject to a mean field interaction are monitored by using computer simulations. The model gives us the opportunity to investigate the evolution of the distributions of fertility and income by using data recorded from simulations at the individual level. Averaging the number of children across households we find that this model to be able to replicate the J-shaped pattern of the fertility rate found in recent empirical analysis.

Keywords: Marginal Utility; Human Development Index; Total Fertility Rate; Baby Boom; Corner Solution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:lnechp:978-3-642-13947-5_19

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-13947-5_19

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