Aggregate Fertility and Household Savings: A General Equilibrium Analysis using Micro Data / Abhijit Banerjee, Xin Meng, Tommaso Porzio, Nancy Qian.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Banerjee, Abhijit.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Meng, Xin.

Porzio, Tommaso.

Qian, Nancy.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w20050.

NBER working paper series no. w20050

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

Aggregate Fertility and Household Savings

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2014.

Summary:

This study uses micro data and an overlapping generations (OLG) model to show that general equilibrium (GE) forces are critical for understanding the relationship between aggregate fertility and household savings. First, we document that parents perceive children as an important source of old-age support and that, in partial equilibrium (PE), increased fertility lowers household savings. Then, we construct an OLG model that parametrically matches the PE empirical evidence. Finally, we extend the model to conduct a GE analysis and show that under standard assumptions and with the parameters implied by the data, GE forces can substantially offset the PE effects. Thus, focusing only on the PE can substantially overstate the effect of aggregate fertility on household savings.

Notes:

Print version record

April 2014.