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Fertility, Education, and Market Failures

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Abstract

We show that coordination failures may be part of an explanation for the demographic differences between rich and poor countries and their differing attitudes towards the use of child labor. Our analysis is carried out within a two-period, general equilibrium model with endogenous fertility, parental investment in children's education and firms' tradeoff between traditional technologies and the adoption of skill-intensive, modern ones. The model exhibits multiple equilibria due to the lack of a coordination mechanism between parental decisions on the quantity and the quality of children and entrepreneurs' technology choices.

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  • Sylvain Dessy & Stephane Pallage, 2002. "Fertility, Education, and Market Failures," Cahiers de recherche CREFE / CREFE Working Papers 148, CREFE, Université du Québec à Montréal.
    • Handle: RePEc:cre:crefwp:148
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Endogenous fertility; education; child labor; skill-biased technology; welfare; multiple equilibria; coordination;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I20 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - General
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
    • J20 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - General

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