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The trade-off between fertility and education : evidence from before the demographic transition
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Becker, Sascha O., Cinnirella, Francesco and Woessmann, Ludger (2010) The trade-off between fertility and education : evidence from before the demographic transition. Journal of Economic Growth, Vol.15 (No.3). pp. 177-204. doi:10.1007/s10887-010-9054-x ISSN 1381-4338.
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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10887-010-9054-x
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.
Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||
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Subjects: | D History General and Old World > DD Germany H Social Sciences > HC Economic History and Conditions H Social Sciences > HQ The family. Marriage. Woman |
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Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Economics | ||||
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Education -- Demographic aspects -- Germany -- Prussia -- History -- 19th century, Fertility, Human -- Statistics, Fertility, Human -- Germany -- Prussia -- History -- 19th century, Prussia (Germany) -- Population | ||||
Journal or Publication Title: | Journal of Economic Growth | ||||
Publisher: | Springer | ||||
ISSN: | 1381-4338 | ||||
Official Date: | 13 August 2010 | ||||
Dates: |
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Volume: | Vol.15 | ||||
Number: | No.3 | ||||
Number of Pages: | 28 | ||||
Page Range: | pp. 177-204 | ||||
DOI: | 10.1007/s10887-010-9054-x | ||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||
Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access | ||||
Date of first compliant deposit: | 3 December 2015 | ||||
Date of first compliant Open Access: | 3 December 2015 | ||||
Funder: | Wissenschaftsgemeinschaft Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz |
Data sourced from Thomson Reuters' Web of Knowledge
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