Fertility in Developing Countries

T. Schultz ()

Working Papers from Economic Growth Center, Yale University

Abstract: The associations between fertility and outcomes in the family and society have been treated as causal, but this is inaccurate if fertility is a choice coordinated by families with other life-cycle decisions, including labour supply of mothers and children, child human capital, and savings. Estimating how exogenous changes in fertility that are uncorrelated with preferences or constraints affect others depends on our specifying a valid instrumental variable for fertility. Twins have served as such an instrument and confirm that the cross-effects of fertility estimated on the basis of this instrument are smaller in absolute value than their associations.

Keywords: Fertility Determination; Malthus; Household Demands; Fertility Effects (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D13 J13 N30 O15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 10 pages
Date: 2007-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-dev and nep-ltv
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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http://www.econ.yale.edu/growth_pdf/cdp953.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Fertility in Developing Countries (2007)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:egc:wpaper:953

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