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.     

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.     

Land pressures,the evolution of farming systems,and development strategies in Africa: A synthesis

Evidence assembled in this special issue of Food Policy shows that rising rural population densities in parts of Africa are profoundly affecting farming systems and the region’s economies in ways that are underappreciated in current discourse on African development issues. This study synthesizes how people, markets and governments are responding to rising land pressures in Africa, drawing on key findings from the various contributions in this special issue. The papers herein revisit the issue of Boserupian agricultural intensification as an important response to land constraints, but they also go further than Boserup and her followers to explore broader responses to land constraints, including non-farm diversification, migration, and reduced fertility rates. Agricultural and rural development strategies in the region will need to more fully anticipate the implications of Africa’s rapidly changing land and demographic situation, and the immense challenges that mounting land pressures pose in the context of current evidence of unsustainable agricultural intensification, a rapidly rising labor force associated with the region’s current demographic conditions, and limited nonfarm job creation. These challenges are manageable but will require explicit policy actions to address the unique development challenges in densely populated rural areas.     

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.     

Fertility and the puzzle of female employment in the Middle East and North Africa

Female labour force participation rates across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region have remained low for over four decades even though, in the same period, women's education rapidly increased and fertility rates substantially decreased. This study provides a better understanding of this surprising phenomenon by testing whether the number of children affects the mother's labour supply (using twins at first birth as an instrumental variable.) Despite a strong first stage, it does not find statistically significant effects in the second stage, even in the combined sample of over 100,000 observations. This non‐result, however, does not rule out that fertility affects women's employment in these countries. But it rejects impacts larger than 0.09. Similar twin‐studies in the United States found effects between 0.12 and 0.31. The paper discusses the implications of this result in understanding the puzzle of female participation in MENA and in designing policies to increase women's employment.     

关于低生育率的理论综述

世界上很多国家已经进入很低生育率行列,中国的部分特大城市甚至已经进入超低生育率。低生育率事实呼唤低生育率理论。对与低生育率相关的七种理论进行分析,包括人口转变理论、理论选择理论、班加茨的低生育率模型、低生育率陷阱理论、扩散理论、性别均衡理论和文化视角。这些理论和模型从人口学、经济学、社会学、女性学、行为主义和文化等不同学科,从宏观、中观和微观等不同层面对生育率进行解读。人口学家不能依靠一个囊括所有方面的宏大理论来解释多样化的低生育率现实,而要从地区模式来理解发展中国家和发达国家不同的低生育率模式。     

农用地自然质量分等与耕地地力评级结果的对比衔接

研究目的:探寻农用地自然质量分等和耕地地力评级结果间的差异与联系.实现其成果的衔接研究方法:模糊综合指数评判法、聚类分析法、层次分析法、GIS叠加分析法、转移矩阵分析、拟合分析。研究结果:(1)农用地自然质量分等和耕地地力评价结果之间等、级变化差异程度不同,同一评价单元农用地自然质量等较多高于耕地地力评价级;(2)平原区等与级结果的差异程度远大于丘陵区;(3)建立了不同指标区农用地自然质量指数与耕地地力评价指数之间的衔接模型,丘陵区衔接模型的线性相关程度明显高于平原区。研究结论:利用衔接模型,可以在农用地自然质量分等和耕地地力评级结果间进行转换,实现了两者在同一指标区的相互衔接检验和不同指标区之间的统一可比性。