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Journal ArticleDOI

Testing the quantity-quality fertility model: the use of twins as a natural experiment.

01 Jan 1980-Econometrica (Econometrica)-Vol. 48, Iss: 1, pp 227-240
TL;DR: It is demonstrated that commodity-independent compensated price effects must be known to infer the existence of the unobservable interdependent shadow prices of the model with a relatively weak structure improsed on preference orderings.
Abstract: The predictive content of the quantity-quality model of fertility and the empirical information required for verification under a minimal set of restrictions on the utility function is described. It is demonstrated that commodity-independent compensated price effects must be known to infer the existence of the unobservable interdependent shadow prices of the model with a relatively weak structure improsed on preference orderings. A method of using multiple birth events to substitute for these exogenous prices is proposed and applied to household data from India. (Authors)
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Book
15 Dec 2008
TL;DR: The core methods in today's econometric toolkit are linear regression for statistical control, instrumental variables methods for the analysis of natural experiments, and differences-in-differences methods that exploit policy changes as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The core methods in today's econometric toolkit are linear regression for statistical control, instrumental variables methods for the analysis of natural experiments, and differences-in-differences methods that exploit policy changes. In the modern experimentalist paradigm, these techniques address clear causal questions such as: Do smaller classes increase learning? Should wife batterers be arrested? How much does education raise wages? Mostly Harmless Econometrics shows how the basic tools of applied econometrics allow the data to speak.In addition to econometric essentials, Mostly Harmless Econometrics covers important new extensions--regression-discontinuity designs and quantile regression--as well as how to get standard errors right. Joshua Angrist and Jorn-Steffen Pischke explain why fancier econometric techniques are typically unnecessary and even dangerous. The applied econometric methods emphasized in this book are easy to use and relevant for many areas of contemporary social science. An irreverent review of econometric essentials A focus on tools that applied researchers use most Chapters on regression-discontinuity designs, quantile regression, and standard errors Many empirical examples A clear and concise resource with wide applications

2,379 citations

Posted Content
TL;DR: The advantages of using research designs patterned after randomized experiments and how they can be improved are described and aids in judging the validity of inferences they draw are provided.
Abstract: Using research designs patterned after randomized experiments, many recent economic studies examine outcome measures for treatment groups and comparison groups that are not randomly assigned. By using variation in explanatory variables generated by changes in state laws, government draft mechanisms, or other means, these studies obtain variation that is readily examined and is plausibly exogenous. This paper describes the advantages of these studies and suggests how they can be improved. It also provides aids in judging the validity of inferences they draw. Design complications such as multiple treatment and comparison groups and multiple pre- or post-intervention observations are advocated.

1,899 citations

Book ChapterDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors provide an overview of the methodological and practical issues that arise when estimating causal relationships that are of interest to labor economists, including identification, data collection, and measurement problems.
Abstract: This chapter provides an overview of the methodological and practical issues that arise when estimating causal relationships that are of interest to labor economists. The subject matter includes identification, data collection, and measurement problems. Four identification strategies are discussed, and five empirical examples – the effects of schooling, unions, immigration, military service, and class size – illustrate the methodological points. In discussing each example, we adopt an experimentalist perspective that emphasizes the distinction between variables that have causal effects, control variables, and outcome variables. The chapter also discusses secondary datasets, primary data collection strategies, and administrative data. The section on measurement issues focuses on recent empirical examples, presents a summary of empirical findings on the reliability of key labor market data, and briefly reviews the role of survey sampling weights and the allocation of missing values in empirical research. © 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

1,701 citations

ReportDOI
TL;DR: The authors describes the advantages of these studies and suggests how they can be improved and also provides aids in judging the validity of inferences that they draw, such as multiple treatment and comparison groups and multiple preintervention or post-intervention observations.
Abstract: Using research designs patterned after randomized experiments, many recent economic studies examine outcome measures for treatment groups and comparison groups that are not randomly assigned. By using variation in explanatory variables generated by changes in state laws, government draft mechanisms, or other means, these studies obtain variation that is readily examined and is plausibly exogenous. This article describes the advantages of these studies and suggests how they can be improved. It also provides aids in judging the validity of inferences that they draw. Design complications such as multiple treatment and comparison groups and multiple preintervention or postintervention observations are advocated.

1,547 citations

Posted Content
TL;DR: A literature review focusing on education and health in its examination of the role that households and families play in choosing how to invest the human capital of their members is presented in this paper.
Abstract: This literature review focuses on education and health in its examination of the role that households and families play in choosing how to invest the human capital of their members. The introductory section describes the history of the development of economic models of the household and reviews how theoretical developments have become linked with data collection. The second section of the report looks at the effects of income on nutritional status and the reverse influence of nutrition (health) on labor productivity (income). Despite the controversies existing in the literature and the difficulties in choosing among the array of solutions to defined problems there is little doubt that investments in education and health enhance productivity fertility child health and child educational attainment. In an attempt to shed light on the underlying mechanisms in these relationships Section 3 focuses on the estimation of reduced form demands for human capital and considers the measurement of human capital; the effects of determinants such as education household resources and community resources; endogenous program placement and selective migration; and the possible estimation bias imposed by fertility and mortality selection. Section 4 continues this investigation by considering the process underlying the production of human capital in terms of the empirical issues involved in estimation of static and dynamic production functions as well as applications to child health and applications to educational attainment. Section 5 relates labor productivity to education and considers data issues the functional form of studies ability family background and school quality. Recent developments in modeling household behavior in a dynamic setting are reviewed in Section 6 and Section 7 describes links among individuals households and families. The concluding section notes that continued integration of survey data collection with theoretical frameworks will lead to a substantial improvement in our understanding of the magnitude of the significance of the effects predicted by the theory.

1,297 citations

References
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Posted Content
TL;DR: This paper analyzed family size decisions within an economic framework and found that fertility was determined primarily by two primitive variables, age at marriage and the frequency of co-operation during marriage, and the development and spread of knowledge about contraceptives during the last century greatly widened the scope of family size decision-making.
Abstract: THE inability of demographers to predict western birth rates accurately in the postwar period has had a salutary influence on demographic research Most predictions had been based either on simple extrapolations of past trends or on extrapolations that adjusted for changes in the agesex-marital composition of the population Socio-economic considerations are entirely absent from the former and are primitive and largely implicit in the latter As long as even crude extrapolations continued to give fairly reliable predictions, as they did during the previous half century, there was little call for complicated analyses of the interrelation between socio-economic variables and fertility However, the sharp decline in birth rates during the thirties coupled with the sharp rise in rates during the postwar period swept away confidence in the view that future rates could be predicted from a secularly declining function of population compositions Maithus could with some justification assume that fertility was determined primarily by two primitive variables, age at marriage and the frequency of coition during marriage The development and spread of knowledge about contraceptives during the last century greatly widened the scope of family size decision-making, and contemporary researchers have been forced to pay greater attention to decision-making than either Maithus or the forecasters did Psychologists have tried to place these decisions within a framework suggested by psychological theory; sociologists have tried one suggested by sociological theory, but most persons would admit that neither framework has been particularly successful in organizing the information on fertility Two considerations encouraged me to analyze family size decisions within an economic framework The first is that Maithus' famous discussion was built upon a strongly economic framework; mine can be viewed as a generalization and development of his Second, although no

2,122 citations

Posted Content
01 Jan 1974

1,778 citations

Posted Content
TL;DR: This article showed that the observed quality income elasticity would be relatively high and the quantity elasticity relatively low and sometimes negative, even if the true "unobserved" income elasticities for quantity and quality were equal and of average value.
Abstract: This paper brings together and integrates social interactions and the special relation between quantity and quality. We are able to show that the observed quality income elasticity would be relatively high and the quantity elasticity relatively low and sometimes negative, even if the true "unobserved� income elasticities for quantity and quality were equal and of average value. Moreover, the observed quality elasticity would fall, and the observed quantity elasticity would rise, as parental income rose.

1,318 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A static economic theory of lifetime marital fertility is presented in this paper, where fertility is defined as a function of the resources parents devote to each child and for the wifes lifetime market earnings capacity and labor supply.
Abstract: A static economic theory of lifetime marital fertility is presented within the context of the economic theory of the family. The theoretical model is developed under a set of restrictive assumptions designed to make it analytically tractable and capable of yielding implications which may be tested with individual data on the number of children born to recent cohorts of American women who have completed their fertility. The model also has implications for child "quality" which is defined as a function of the resources parents devote to each child and for the wifes lifetime market earnings capacity and labor supply. Focus is on fertility as a form of economic behavior fertility demand and the demand for child quality the supply of child services and the allocation of time desired fertility and wifes labor force participation and empirical results. On the basis of the evidence presented it appears that the interaction model captures an important empirical regularity in the cross-section relationship between fertility and measures of husbands income and wifes education that has become apparent in the emergence of a U-shaped relationship between fertility and income. This relationship has been observed in many advanced countries in the past 25 years and was an incipient relation at the lower levels of income and education prevailing in earlier periods. This empirical regularity is also consistent with the predictions of the theoretical model of fertility demand developed in this paper and must therefore be counted as evidence in its favor.

1,202 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article showed that the observed quality income elasticity would be relatively high and the quantity elasticity relatively low and sometimes negative, even if the true "unobserved" income elasticities for quantity and quality were equal and of average value.
Abstract: This paper brings together and integrates social interactions and the special relation between quantity and quality. We are able to show that the observed quality income elasticity would be relatively high and the quantity elasticity relatively low and sometimes negative, even if the true "unobserved� income elasticities for quantity and quality were equal and of average value. Moreover, the observed quality elasticity would fall, and the observed quantity elasticity would rise, as parental income rose.

1,161 citations