Marriage Settlements

French couples may choose between two types of marriage settlements governing asset ownership after a divorce or inheritance: common property or separate property. A cooperative model considers the marriage contract as a means of providing for widowhood of the less endowed spouse. A second model addresses the probability of divorce and the production of a marriage good. The common property contract then becomes a means of inducing the wife to invest in the marriage good. Choice of contract, labor supply and fertility are simultaneous. Empirically we find that characteristics of the spouses such as relative age or differences in endowments influence the choice. So do the expected number of children and the wife's labor supply decision. This last decision is also shown to be influenced by the chosen settlement, while fertility is not.
JEL classification : J 12; J 4; K 12     

人口出生率地区差异的新兴古典经济学解释

新兴古典经济学中,经济组织的主要功能是降低分工生产中的交易费用.家庭区别于自由契约组织(市场与企业)的特征在于成员身份确定的血缘原则,而正是这一特征决定了家庭组织分工生产的功能在分工深化过程中从主到次的逐步退化规律.经济功能的退化导致平均家庭规模以及出生率持续下降,这一结论在中国省际数据的计量分析中得到了进一步的验证.     

低保未就业人员求职意愿及影响因素研究

当前城市最低生活保障制度在运行过程中存在的一个突出问题,是低保对象中有劳动能力者的比重日益提高.运用北京市的调查数据,分析了若干经济、社会和心理(文化)因素对低保未就业者的求职意愿及行为的影响.研究发现:贫穷文化和社会资本对求职意愿、家庭规模对求职行为的影响作用具有统计显著性,工作与低保的比较效益以及就业援助则无显著影响.研究结果对进一步完善低保政策具有启发意义.     

出生缺陷地理风险因子的空间分析

出生缺陷是影响人口出生质量最重要的因素。大量研究表明,出生缺陷仅仅靠单纯的生物医学研究还不够,多学科的交叉研究是有效探讨出生缺陷病因和预防的唯一出路。利用北京大学人口环境健康组调查数据,分类了能够在地理空间上归属的出生缺陷风险因素,将这些因素存在的空间相关性进行了传统统计分析方法不适宜的风险因子与出生缺陷统计因果之间的研究。探讨了空间分析技术在出生缺陷的地理风险因子研究的一般步骤与关键技术,为出生缺陷研究提供了新的思路。     

陕西构建和谐社会须切实控制出生人口性别比

出生人口性别比保持在正常值域是和谐社会的一个重要基础。陕西出生人口性别比显著高于正常值，且有加剧趋势。将对构建和谐社会带来严重后果，必须采取多种措施进行控制和治理。     

Pollution Externalities in a Model of Endogenous Fertility and Growth

An endogenous growth model with human capital formation, pollution caused by production of consumption goods, and endogenous fertility decisions made by altruistic agents with infinite horizons is presented. Consequences for optimal policy of modelling fertility as an explicit decision variable are examined. Because ordinary lump-sum transfers to individuals are no longer neutral, either revenue from a pollution tax must be redistributed to dynasties (working as an implicit tax on child births), or lump-sum transfers must be supplemented with an explicit fertility tax. Alternatively, the government can avoid distortions of the fertility decisions by maintaining an appropriate public debt. When abatement is highly productive, it can be optimal to subsidize fertility in order to increase total production.     

Population Aging and the Possibility of a Middle-Income Trap in Asia

We present three conditions for a demography-driven middle-income trap and show that many economies in East, South, and Southeast Asia satisfy all of them. The conditions involve (1) the support ratio of workers to consumers has an impact on economic growth, (2) economic development accompanies more investment in human capital and lower fertility due to the quantity–quality trade-off, and (3) a current low level of fertility corresponds to very low support ratios for keeping up with frontier economies in the long run. Panel analysis for 178 countries shows that (1) and (2) are satisfied for Asia with higher elasticity than others. As for (3), we set up a dynamic model for simulations, showing that approximately two-third of Asia’s developing countries have an unsustainable level of support ratios, implying possibility of a middle-income trap due to future demographic headwinds.     

A Population Projection for Indonesia, 2010–2035

In the context of its long-term planning, from time to time the Indonesian government publishes an official population projection. The latest projection was released on 29 January 2014. In this article, I describe and evaluate the methods and assumptions used to produce the projection, and provide key results.     

Demographic Transition and Fertility Rebound in Economic Development*

Recent evidence on the “fertility rebound” offers credence to the idea that, from the onset of early industrialization to the present day, the dynamics of fertility can be represented by an N-shaped curve. An overlapping generations model with parental investment in human capital can account for these observed movements in fertility rates during the different stages of demographic change. A demographic transition with declining fertility emerges at the intermediate stage, when parents engage on a child quantity–quality trade-off. At later stages, however, the process of economic growth generates sufficient resources so that households can rear more children while still providing the desirable amount of education investment per child.     

Primary education and fertility rates

Unified growth theory advances that the transition from a Malthusian regime to sustained economic growth is characterized by technological progress and, amongst other things, by an increase in demand for human capital which in turn creates incentives for lower fertility rates. Bearing that in mind, I ask the question: has southern Africa escaped the Malthusian stagnation? Specifically, I study whether primary school completion rates have played any role in total fertility rates in all countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) during the 1980–2009 period. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the results, based on dynamic panel time‐series methods, suggest that primary education is associated with lower fertility in the SADC, or that the community is already trading‐off quantity for quality of children. Although I do not claim causality, overall the results are significant because, in accordance with unified growth theory, they suggest that the SADC is experiencing its own transition from the Malthusian stagnation epoch into sustained growth, or that the SADC is going through its own post‐Malthusian regime.