Families in Macroeconomics

Matthias Doepke and Michele Tertilt

No 2016-010, Working Papers from Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group

Abstract: Much of macroeconomics is concerned with the allocation of physical capital, human capital, and labor over time and across people. The decisions on savings, education, and labor supply that generate these variables are made within families. Yet the family (and decision-making in families) is typically ignored in macroeconomic models. In this chapter, we argue that family economics should be an integral part of macroeconomics, and that accounting for the family leads to new answers to classic macro questions. Our discussion is organized around three themes. We start by focusing on short and medium run fluctuations, and argue that changes in family structure in recent decades have important repercussions for the determination of aggregate labor supply and savings. Next, we turn to economic growth, and describe how accounting for families is central for understanding differences between rich and poor countries and for the determinants of long-run development. We conclude with an analysis of the role of the family as a driver of political and institutional change.

Keywords: families; Households; bargaining; fertility; Labor Supply; human capital; gender (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D13 J16 O10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gro and nep-lab
Note: M
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (135)

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http://humcap.uchicago.edu/RePEc/hka/wpaper/Doepke ... s-macroeconomics.pdf First version, March, 2016 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Chapter: Families in Macroeconomics (2016)
Working Paper: Families in Macroeconomics (2016)
Working Paper: Families in Macroeconomics (2016)
Working Paper: Families in Macroeconomics (2016)
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