Endogenous fertility and development traps with endogenous lifetime

Fanti, Luciano and Gori, Luca (2010): Endogenous fertility and development traps with endogenous lifetime.

Abstract

We extend the literature on endogenous lifetime and economic growth by Chakraborty (2004) and Bunzel and Qiao (2005) to endogenous fertility. It is shown that development traps due to under investments in health can never appear when fertility is an economic decision variable.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Endogenous fertility; Health; Life expectancy; OLG model
• Subjects: J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J1 - Demographic Economics > J13 - Fertility ; Family Planning ; Child Care ; Children ; Youth; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O4 - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity > O40 - General; I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I1 - Health > I10 - General

References

Barro, R.J., Becker, G.S., 1989. Fertility choice in a model of economic growth. Econometrica 57, 481–501.

Becker, G.S., 1960. An economic analysis of fertility. In Demographic and Economic Change in Developing Countries. National Bureau Committee for Economic Research, Ed., Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Becker, G.S., Barro, R.J., 1988. A reformulation of the economic theory of fertility. Quarterly Journal of Economics 103, 1–25.

Becker, G.S., Murphy, K.M., Tamura, R., 1990. Human capital, fertility and growth. Journal of Political Economy 98, S12–S37.

Bhattacharya, J., Qiao, X., 2007. Public and private expenditures on health in a growth model. Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control 31, 2519–2535.

Blackburn, K., Cipriani, G.P., 2002. A model of longevity, fertility and growth. Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control 26, 187–204.

Bunzel, H., Qiao, X., 2005. Endogenous lifetime and economic growth revisited. Economics Bulletin 15, 1−8.

Chakraborty, S., 2004. Endogenous lifetime and economic growth. Journal of Economic Theory 116, 119–137.

Diamond, P.A., 1965. National debt in a neoclassical growth model. American Economic Review 55, 1126–1150.

Durlauf, S.N., Johnson, P.A., 1995. Multiple regimes and cross-country growth behaviour. Journal of Applied Econometrics 10, 365–384.

Eckstein, Z., Wolpin, K.I., 1985. Endogenous fertility and optimal population size. Journal of Public Economics 27, 93–106.

Fiaschi, D., Lavezzi, A.M., 2003. Distribution dynamics and nonlinear growth. Journal of Economic Growth 8, 379–401.

Fiaschi, D., Lavezzi, A.M., 2007. Nonlinear economic growth: some theory and cross-country evidence. Journal of Development Economics 84, 271–290.

Galor, O., Weil, D.N., 1996. The gender gap, fertility, and growth. American Economic Review 86, 374–387.

Groezen, B. van, Meijdam, L., 2008. Growing old and staying young: population policy in an ageing closed economy. Journal of Population Economics 21, 573–588.

Groezen, B. van, Leers, T., Meijdam, L., 2003. Social security and endogenous fertility: pensions and child allowances as Siamese twins. Journal of Public Economics 87, 233–251.

Leung, M.C.M., Wang, Y., 2010. Endogenous health care and life expectancy in a neoclassical growth model. Pacific Economic Review 15, 11–31.