The trade-off between child quantity and quality is a crucial ingredient of unified growth models that explain the transition from Malthusian stagnation to modern growth. We present first evidence that such a trade-off indeed existed already in the nineteenth century, exploiting a unique census-based dataset of 334 Prussian counties in 1849. Furthermore, we find that causation between fertility and education runs both ways, based on separate instrumental-variable models that instrument fertility by sex ratios and education by landownership inequality and distance to Wittenberg. Education in 1849 also predicts the fertility transition in 1880–1905.

(2010). The trade-off between fertility and education: evidence from before the demographic transition [journal article - articolo]. In JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC GROWTH. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/10446/146266

The trade-off between fertility and education: evidence from before the demographic transition

Cinnirella, Francesco;
2010-01-01

Abstract

The trade-off between child quantity and quality is a crucial ingredient of unified growth models that explain the transition from Malthusian stagnation to modern growth. We present first evidence that such a trade-off indeed existed already in the nineteenth century, exploiting a unique census-based dataset of 334 Prussian counties in 1849. Furthermore, we find that causation between fertility and education runs both ways, based on separate instrumental-variable models that instrument fertility by sex ratios and education by landownership inequality and distance to Wittenberg. Education in 1849 also predicts the fertility transition in 1880–1905.
articolo
2010
Becker, Sascha O.; Cinnirella, Francesco; Woessmann, Ludger
(2010). The trade-off between fertility and education: evidence from before the demographic transition [journal article - articolo]. In JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC GROWTH. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/10446/146266
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