Baby busts and baby booms
Subtitle: the fertility response to shocks in dynastic models
By: Larry E. Jones, Alice Schoonbroodt
Contributors: Schoonbroodt, Alice; National Bureau of Economic Research
Series: NBER working paper series -- working paper 16596; Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research : Online) -- working paper no. 16596.
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research
Published: 2010
Place of publication: Cambridge, MA
Language: eng
Format: Electronic resource
Description: "Economic demographers have long analyzed fertility cycles.  This paper builds a foundation for these cycles in a model of fertility choice with dynastic altruism and aggregate shocks.  It is shown that under reasonable parameter values, fertility is pro-cyclical and that, following a shock, fertility continues to cycle endogenously as subsequent cohorts enter retirement.  Quantitatively, in the model, the Great Depression generates a large baby bust -- between 38% and 63% of that seen in the U.S.  in the 1930s -- which is subsequently followed by a baby boom -- between 53% and 92% of that seen in the U.S.  in the 1950s"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
Notes: Title from PDF file as viewed on 3/31/2011.

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