Intergenerational Transfers and the Fertility–Income Relationship
论证代际转移约束是理解家庭收入与生育率负相关关系的关键，若父母能合法让子女承担养育债务，则生育率与收入无关；否则，当代际替代弹性大于1时，两者呈负相关。
Evidence from cross‐sectional data reveals a negative relationship between family income and fertility. This article argues that constraints to intergenerational transfers are crucial for understanding this relationship. If parents could legally impose debt obligations on their children to recover the costs incurred in raising them, then fertility would be independent of parental income. A relationship between fertility and income arises when parents are unable to leave debts because of legal, enforcement or moral constraints. This relationship is negative when the intergenerational elasticity of substitution is larger than one, a case in which parental consumption is a good substitute for children's consumption.