Fertility and economic development: theoretical considerations and cross-country evidence

The paper presents a theoretical background for the analysis of the relationship between fertility and a number of socioeconomic factors associated with the process of economic development and analyses empirically this relationship within a cross-country framework. Fertility is found to be negatively related with female education, urbanization and family planning and positively related with the levels of infant mortality and economic development, whereas no significant relationship between fertility and female labour force participation is established. Sensitivity analysis is performed and the policy implications of the empirical findings are briefly discussed.     

Skill Composition,Fertility, and Economic Growth

While high fertility persists in the poorest countries and fertility declines with per capita income in developing countries, fertility and per capita income are now positively associated across most developed countries. This paper presents a model where a U‐shaped relationship between overall fertility and per capita income reflects within country differences in workforce skill composition and household choice of occupation, fertility, and childrearing. The fraction of skilled workers rises with economic growth. By allowing for both differences in the fertility of skilled and unskilled workers and purchased childrearing inputs, we explain a poverty trap with high fertility, fertility decline with economic development, and the possible reversal of fertility decline in a developed economy where most workers are skilled.     

Population growth and economic growth: a reconsideration

The relationship between population growth and development has long been a controversial topic in the economic development literature. Early work by Hoover and Coale and more recent work by Blanchet suggest that high fertility suppresses per capita income growth. However, recent work by Kelley and Srinivasan are ambivalent about such a neo-Malthusian relationship between population growth and economic growth. The authors examine these conflicting positions. They emphasize that the rates of both population growth and income growth are endogenous variables within a general equilibrium framework. An endogenous growth model with endogenous fertility is then developed. It is found that when all exogenous variables are controlled for, there exists an inverse relation between population growth and economic growth. However, when some exogenous factors change, such as an improvement in technological progress, the relation becomes ambiguous. This suggests that the conflicting findings in the literature may be because of the presence of substantial heterogeneity in unobserved variables across countries and over time in cross-country panel data sets.     

Does female schooling reduce fertility? Evidence from Nigeria

The literature generally points to a negative relationship between female education and fertility. Citing this pattern, policymakers have advocated educating girls and young women as a means to reduce population growth and foster sustained economic and social welfare in developing countries. This paper tests whether the relationship between fertility and education is indeed causal by investigating the introduction of universal primary education in Nigeria. Exploiting differences in program exposure by region and age, the paper presents reduced form and instrumental variables estimates of the impact of female education on fertility. The analysis suggests that increasing female education by one year reduces early fertility by 0.26 births.     

The formation and change of fertility preferences: a case study of the generational change in the size of the Italian family in the United States

The process of fertility preference formation and change is examined from the psychological angle, using the example of changes over time in the size of families of Italian origin in the United States. The relationship between psychological and economic factors in this process of change is considered. The author develops a theory of personality development in which these changes in fertility preference can be seen as an outgrowth of adaptation and cultural change over time.     

基于经济长周期耦合的中国产业发展——以江苏无锡为例的研究

随着经济全球化的进一步发展,一国或一个地区的经济发展同国际环境愈发密切相关。本文在定性分析世界经济长周期与产业发展关系的基础上,构建了基于灰色关联度的经济长周期耦合模型,以无锡产业发展为例,定量判断无锡经济发展趋势同世界经济发展的耦合度,并结合世界经济长波背景、无锡产业基础和中国物联网发展国家战略,提出无锡通过发展物联网产业带动整体产业发展的模式,为中国的产业发展提供借鉴。     

河南省经济增长和教育发展的灰色关联度分析

本文将经济增长和教育发展的相互作用关系作为灰色系统,建立了教育发展与经济增长的灰色关联度分析模型,并选取了2000—2007年河南省教育发展和经济增长相关指标的数据,对河南省的教育发展与经济增长的相互关系进行了实证分析。研究结果显示:总体上,河南省经济增长与教育发展呈中度关联。这表明,为促进经济增长,应加强高等教育、中等职业教育和成人技术培训教育,同时还应继续增加对教育发展的资金投入力度。     

人力资本与农村生育率间的互馈效应研究

我国农村生育率下降是政策强制下的被动过程,而通过加快农村人力资本积累可以促进农村生育率"自愿性"下降,加快农村经济发展。文章用理论与实证方法分析验证了人力资本与农村生育率间的互馈效应,结果表明,农村人力资本积累对农村生育率具有较强的抑制效应,而农村生育率下降可以带来农村人力资本积累量的增加,助推农村经济快速增长。     

Women’s rights and development

Why has the expansion of women’s economic and political rights coincided with economic development? This paper investigates this question by focusing on a key economic right for women: property rights. The basic hypothesis is that the process of development (i.e., capital accumulation and declining fertility) exacerbated the tension in men’s conflicting interests as husbands versus fathers, ultimately resolving them in favor of the latter. As husbands, men stood to gain from their privileged position in a patriarchal world whereas, as fathers, they were hurt by a system that afforded few rights to their daughters. The model predicts that declining fertility would hasten reform of women’s property rights whereas legal systems that were initially more favorable to women would delay them. The theoretical relationship between capital and the relative attractiveness of reform is non-monotonic but growth inevitably leads to reform. I explore the empirical validity of the theoretical predictions by using cross-state variation in the US in the timing of married women obtaining property and earning rights between 1850 and 1920.     

湖南省金融发展与经济增长的ECM模型分析

金融发展与经济增长的关系是经济学的一个重要研究领域。选取1982—2008年为时间段,以湖南省为例对金融发展与经济增长的关系进行了实证研究,结果表明湖南省信贷存量、其他金融机构发展（除银行）与经济增长呈正相关关系,而货币存量与经济增长呈负相关关系。经济增长是其他金融机构发展的短期格兰杰原因,而存贷存量在长期上是经济增长的格兰杰原因。     

Why did rich families increase their fertility? Inequality and marketization of child care

A negative relationship between income and fertility has persisted for so long that its existence is often taken for granted. One economic theory builds on this relationship and argues that rising inequality leads to greater differential fertility between rich and poor. We show that the relationship between income and fertility has flattened between 1980 and 2010 in the US, a time of increasing inequality, as high income families increased their fertility. These facts challenge the standard theory. We propose that marketization of parental time costs can explain the changing relationship between income and fertility. We show this result both theoretically and quantitatively, after disciplining the model on US data. We explore implications of changing differential fertility for aggregate human capital. Additionally, policies, such as the minimum wage, that affect the cost of marketization, have a negative effect on the fertility and labor supply of high income women. We end by discussing the insights of this theory to the economics of marital sorting.     

产业集聚、产业多样化与城市经济韧性关系研究

2008年金融危机对全球多个国家经济发展造成巨大冲击,我国许多沿海外向型城市面临国外订单需求不足、行业内人才流失以及厂房闲置等问题,体现出城市经济韧性能力的重要性。针对不同城市在面对外部冲击时表现出的城市经济韧性能力差异,重点研究产业集聚、产业多样化与城市经济韧性之间的关系,并将产业多样化划分为产业相关多样化和产业无关多样化,运用基准回归和稳健性检验分析两种划分对城市经济韧性的影响。结果表明,产业集聚与城市经济韧性之间呈U型关系,产业相关多样化与城市经济韧性之间呈倒U型关系,产业无关多样化与城市经济韧性呈倒U型关系。最后从破除区域间分权壁垒角度提出政策建议。     

Economic models of fertility behaviour in Australia

The author analyses individual fertility patterns in Australia from the perspective of recent economic models of the family. The emphasis is on the relationship between fertility and economic variables such as human capital, market wages, and wealth. "Several dimensions of fertility are considered, including 'quality' of children, completed family size, and the decision whether to have children or not." Data are from the 1973 Social Mobility in Australia Survey.     

On the relationship between fertility and public national debt

Public debt and fertility are two issues of major concern in the current economic policy debate, especially in countries with below-replacement-fertility and large debt (which appears further enlarged as a consequence of the recent world financial distress 2008–2009). In this paper we show that, at the steady state, public debt is in general harmful for fertility, in that debt issuing almost ever crowds fertility. The relationship is however reversed if debt is sufficiently low and the share of capital (labor) in the economy is sufficiently low (high). Hence, our analysis would recommend that developed, capital intensive economies (such as OECD countries) aiming at a fertility recovery should reduce national debt, while developing, labor intensive economies, aiming at reducing fertility, should increase (reduce) national debt only if they are debt virtuous (vicious).     

Human capital and economic development

This paper develops a general equilibrium model of fertility and human capital investment with young adult mortality. Because young adult mortality is negatively related to average young adult human capital, human capital accumulation lowers mortality, inducing demographic transition and industrial revolution. Data confirm that young adult mortality is related negatively to schooling, and the rate of return to schooling, and positively to fertility. The data indicate a negative relationship between TFP growth and schooling accumulation. The model fits the data on country populations, per capita incomes, human capital, total fertility rates, infant mortality, life expectancy and conditional life expectancy.     

创新发展中国特色社会主义政治经济学需处理好十个方面的关系

中国特色社会主义政治经济学是当代中国经济学的理论基础,是理论经济学与应用经济学相关学科的"硬核"部分.创新发展中国特色社会主义政治经济学需要处理好若干重要的关系,例如价值理性与工具理性的关系、马克思主义政治经济学原理与中国特色社会主义实践的关系、马克思主义政治经济学原理与中国特色社会主义政治经济学的关系、文本研究与实证...     

The long-run determinants of fertility: one century of demographic change 1900–1999

We examine the long-run relationship between fertility, mortality, and income using panel cointegration techniques and the available data for the last century. Our main result is that mortality changes and growth of income contributed to the fertility transition. The fertility reduction triggered by falling mortality, however, is not enough to overcompensate the positive effect of falling mortality on population growth. This means that growth of income per capita is essential to explain the observed secular decline of population growth. These results are robust to alternative estimation methods, potential outliers, sample selection, different measures of mortality, the sample period, the inclusion of education as an explanatory variable, and the use of different data sets. In addition, our causality tests suggest that fertility changes are both cause and consequence of economic development.     

江西能源消费结构与经济发展的灰色关联分析——基于低碳经济的视角

能源是人类赖以生存和发展的重要物质基础,能源消费与经济发展有着十分密切的关系。江西作为能源资源匮乏的省份,发展低碳经济是弥补劣势的重要手段。利用灰色关联分析方法具体分析了江西省能源消费结构与经济发展的关系。结果表明,江西省应改善以煤炭为主的能源消费结构,大力发展低碳经济,逐步优化产业结构和能源消费结构。     

Growth,fertility and human capital: A survey

This paper surveys recent work on endogenous fertility and endogenous growth. These models provide the building blocks for a theory of development. They are capable of explaining income and fertility differentials between rich and poor countries. They can produce switching behavior, countries that transform themselves from no growth economies into high growth economies. The fertility and growth effects of social security programs are also examined. Finally models with increasing returns to population are presented. They are capable of reproducing very long term relationships between human capital, fertility and economic growth.     

A THEORY OF THE CROSS‐SECTIONAL FERTILITY DIFFERENTIAL: JOB HETEROGENEITY APPROACH

This article presents a theory of the cross‐sectional fertility differential, which produces the negative wage–fertility relationship based on job heterogeneity. Although evidence suggests the importance of job heterogeneity in the labor market, it has largely been ignored in theories of fertility choice. I show that a theory incorporating job heterogeneity requires only standard conditions on preferences to generate the negative wage–fertility relationship, and the negative relationship derived from the model is robust to changes in economic environments (e.g., public policy and technology). Furthermore, the theory reconciles the negative cross‐sectional wage–fertility relationship with various time‐series variations in aggregate fertility.