The love for children hypothesis and the multiplicity of fertility rates

As illustrated by some French departments, how can we explain the existence of equilibria with different fertility and growth rates in economies with the same fundamentals, preferences, technologies and initial conditions? To answer this question we develop an endogenous growth model with altruism a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of mathematical economics 2019-08, Vol.83 (C), p.89-100
Main Authors: Melindi-Ghidi, Paolo, Seegmuller, Thomas
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Altruism
Balanced growth path
Children
Children & youth
Demographic transition
Demographics
Economics and Finance
Endogenous
Endogenous growth
Expectations
Fertility
Growth models
Growth rate
Humanities and Social Sciences
Hypotheses
Initial conditions
Love
Love for children
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Summary:As illustrated by some French departments, how can we explain the existence of equilibria with different fertility and growth rates in economies with the same fundamentals, preferences, technologies and initial conditions? To answer this question we develop an endogenous growth model with altruism and love for children. We show that independently from the type of altruism, a multiplicity of equilibria might emerge if the degree of love for children is high enough. We refer to this condition as the love for children hypothesis. Then, the fertility rate is determined by expectations on the future growth rate and the dynamics are not path-dependent. Our model is able to reproduce different fertility behaviours in a context of completed demographic transition independently from fundamentals, preferences, technologies and initial conditions.
ISSN:0304-4068
1873-1538
DOI:10.1016/j.jmateco.2019.04.009