Journal article
Macroeconomic Dynamics, vol. 20(8), Cambridge University Press, 2016 Dec, pp. 2046-2066
Professor of Economics
APA
Brezis, E. S., & Ferreira, R. D. S. (2016). Endogenous Fertility With A Sibship Size Effect. Macroeconomic Dynamics, 20(8), 2046–2066.
Chicago/Turabian
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
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.
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