The Early Bird gets the Worm? Birth Order Effects in a Dynamic Model of the Family

Elisabeth Gugl and Linda Welling ()

No 801, Department Discussion Papers from Department of Economics, University of Victoria

Abstract: Birth order effects are found in empirical work, but lack solid theoretical foundations in economics. Our new modeling approach to children provides this. Each child’s needs change as it grows, and births are sequential. Each child has the same genetic make-up and parents do not favor one child over the other. Parental child care time lowers the caregiver’s current and future wages; this opportunity cost varies across time. Benefits also vary, and when parental child care is a public input co-resident children allow economies of scope in child care. Birth order effects emerge from the changing benefits and costs.

Keywords: Birth order; children; family (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D13 D91 J13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 35 pages
Date: 2008-10-23
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab
Note: ISSN 1914-2838
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.uvic.ca/socialsciences/economics/_assets/docs/discussion/ddp0801.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: The Early Bird gets the Worm? Birth Order Effects in a Dynamic Model of the Family (2007)
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:vic:vicddp:0801

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Department Discussion Papers from Department of Economics, University of Victoria PO Box 1700, STN CSC, Victoria, BC, Canada, V8W 2Y2. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kali Moon ().