Fertility and the Price of Children: Evidence from Slavery and Slave Emancipation
利用1850-1870年美国蓄奴家庭的面板数据，研究奴隶持有量变化如何影响奴隶主自身孩子的边际产出和价格，进而影响其生育决策，发现孩子价格与生育率呈强负相关。
Theories of the demographic transition often center on the rising price of children. A model of fertility derived from household production in the antebellum United States contains both own children and slaves as inputs. Changes in slaveholdings beget changes in the marginal product of the slaveowners’ own children and, hence, their price. I use panel data on slaveowning households between 1850 and 1870 to measure the slaveowners’ own fertility responses to exogenous changes in slaveholdings. Results indicate a strong, negative correlation between own child prices and fertility.