APA
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Brezis, E. S., & Ferreira, R. D. S. (2016). Endogenous Fertility With A Sibship Size Effect. Macroeconomic Dynamics, 20(8), 2046–2066.
Chicago/Turabian
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Brezis, Elise S., and Rodolphe Dos Santos Ferreira. “Endogenous Fertility With A Sibship Size Effect.” Macroeconomic Dynamics 20, no. 8 (December 2016): 2046–2066.
MLA
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Brezis, Elise S., and Rodolphe Dos Santos Ferreira. “Endogenous Fertility With A Sibship Size Effect.” Macroeconomic Dynamics, vol. 20, no. 8, Cambridge University Press, Dec. 2016, pp. 2046–66.
BibTeX Click to copy
@article{brezis2016a,
title = {Endogenous Fertility With A Sibship Size Effect},
year = {2016},
month = dec,
issue = {8},
journal = {Macroeconomic Dynamics},
pages = {2046-2066},
publisher = {Cambridge University Press},
volume = {20},
author = {Brezis, Elise S. and Ferreira, Rodolphe Dos Santos},
month_numeric = {12}
}
Since the seminal work of Becker, the dynamics of endogenous fertility has been based on the trade-off faced by parents between the quantity and the quality of their children. However, in developing countries, where child labor is an indispensable source of household income, parents actually incur a negative cost by having an extra child, so that the trade-off disappears. The purpose of this paper is to restore the Beckerian quantity–quality trade-off when intergenerational transfers are upstream, in order to keep fertility endogenous. We do that by adding a negative “sibship size effect” on human capital formation to the standard Becker model. With a simple specification, we obtain multiplicity of steady states or, more fundamentally, the possibility of a jump from a state with high fertility and low income to a state with low fertility and high income, triggered by a continuous increase in the productivity of human capital formation.
Keywords: endogenous fertility, intergenerational transfers, human capital formation, demographic transition
