Declining fertility and economic well-being. Do education and health ride to the rescue?

Autor/inn/en	Prettner, Klaus; Bloom, David E.; Strulik, Holger
Titel	Declining fertility and economic well-being. Do education and health ride to the rescue?
Quelle	Bonn: IZA (2012), 33 S., 393,04 KB PDF als Volltext kostenfreie Datei (1); PDF als Volltext kostenfreie Datei (2) Link als defekt meldenVerfügbarkeit
Reihe	Discussion paper series / Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit. 6527
Beigaben	grafische Darstellungen
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	online; Monographie; Graue Literatur
Schlagwörter	Schätzung; Fruchtbarkeit; Gesundheitsvorsorge; Bevölkerungsentwicklung; Bildungsinvestition; Investition; Arbeitsplatzangebot; Arbeitspapier; Theorie; Welt
Abstract	It is widely argued that declining fertility slows the pace of economic growth in industrialized countries through its negative effect on labor supply. There are, however, theoretical arguments suggesting that the effect of falling fertility on effective labor supply can be offset by associated behavioral changes. We formalize these arguments by setting forth a dynamic consumer optimization model that incorporates endogenous fertility as well as endogenous education and health investments. The model shows that a fertility decline induces higher education and health investments that are able to compensate for declining fertility under certain circumstances. We assess the theoretical implications by investigating panel data for 118 countries over the period 1980 to 2005 and show that behavioral changes partly mitigate the negative impact of declining fertility on effective labor supply.
Erfasst von	ZBW - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft, Kiel
Update	2012/4