Optimal Lifecycle Fertility in a Barro Becker Economy
Pre-print, Working paper: Parenthood postponement is a key demographic trend of the last three decades. In order to rationalize that stylized fact, we extend the canonical model by Barro and Becker (1989) to include two – instead of one reproduction periods. We examine how the cost structure of early and late children in terms of time and goods a¤ects the optimal fertility timing. Then, focusing a stationary equilibrium with stationary population, we provide two alternative explanations for the observed postponement of births: (1) a fall of the direct cost of late children (thanks to medical advances); (2) a rise in hourly productivity, which increases the (relative) opportunity costs of early children in comparison to late children.
Keywords JEL
Keywords
- Fertility
- Birth Timing
- Population
- Dynastic Altruism
- OLG Model
Internal reference
- PSE Working Papers n°2012-11
URL of the HAL notice
Version
- 1