Cheap Children and the Persistence of Poverty
提出一个生育选择理论，认为受教育者在培养高教育子女上有比较优势，导致穷人选择高生育率、低教育投入，从而陷入贫困陷阱，并解释了不平等、全球化和预期寿命对经济增长和人口转型的影响。
This paper develops a theory of fertility that offers an explanation for the persistence of poverty within and across countries. If educated individuals have a comparative advantage in raising educated children then parental fertility choice is shown to give rise to a poverty trap, in which the poor choose high fertility rates with low investment in child quality. Moreover, the impact of child quality choice on economic performance is amplified by the diluting effect of higher fertility on physical capital accumulation. The theory proposes insights regarding the effects of inequality, globalisation and life expectancy on economic growth and demographic transitions. This paper develops a theory of fertility and child educational choice that offers an explanation for the persistence of poverty within and across countries. The joint determination of the quality (education) and quantity of children in a household is studied under the key assumption that individuals ’ productivity as teachers increases with their own human capital. In contrast, the minimum time cost asso-ciated with raising a child regardless of the child’s quality – the quantity cost – is not affected by parental education. As a result, the price of child quantity relative to the price of child quality increases with individuals ’ wages. In particular, for low-wage