The baby boom and baby bust

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Greenwood, J; Seshadri, A; Vandenbroucke, G
• 署名单位: University of Rochester; University of Wisconsin System; University of Wisconsin Madison; University of Southern California
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/0002828053828680
• 发表日期: 2005
• 页码: 183-207
• 关键词: household production; fertility; TECHNOLOGY; population; homework; GROWTH

摘要

What caused the baby boom? And can it be explained within the context of the secular decline infertility that has occurred over the last 200 years? The hypothesis is that: (a) The secular decline infertility is due to the relentless rise in real wages that increased the opportunity cost of having children; (b) The baby boom is explained by an atypical burst of technological progress in the household sector that occurred in the middle of the last century. This lowered the cost of having children. A model is developed in an attempt to account, quantitatively, for both the baby boom and bust.