Endogenous Fertility and the Environment:Dynamics and Welfare Implications

人们普遍认识到，人口压力是环境退化的最重要来源之一，在发展中国家尤其如此。人们还没有充分认识到环境质量对人们生育动机的影响。该项目侧重于父母对儿童的渴望和对儿童未来福祉的关注对人口与环境之间的动态关系的影响。该项目还调查了对儿童征税和向父母提供补贴的制度是否可以改善当代成员的福利，以及这种税收/补贴政策可能对人口/环境相互作用的动态产生什么影响。发展中国家人口与环境之间的关系也是全球变化中人的层面的一个重要组成部分，因为发展中国家的环境退化导致全球变暖，而且发展中国家的人口持续高速增长将使经济增长目标与环境保护之间的协调变得越来越困难，如果不是不可能的话。这项研究既是理论的，也是实证的。具体地说，对农业投入需求系统模型进行了推导、描述和估计。该模型包括特定年龄和性别的劳动力需求方程式。实证研究依赖于布基纳法索调查数据和巴基斯坦调查数据。以前的数据集包含了布基纳法索1981年至1985年期间农业生产的非常详细的信息，包括按年龄和性别分列的家庭和雇用劳动力用于各种农业活动的情况。后者的数据代表了巴基斯坦三个不同农业生态区的贫困家庭，并提供了关于这些家庭的社会经济和农业特征的非常详细的信息。

It is widely recognized that population pressure is one of the most important sources of environmental degradation, especially in developing countries. What is less fully appreciated is the impact of environmental quality on people's motives for having children. This project focuses on the implications of parents' desire for children and concern with the children's future well- being for the dynamic relation between population and environment. The project also investigates whether a system of taxes on children and subsidies to parents can be welfare- improving for members of the present generation and what affects such tax/subsidy policies may have on the dynamics of demographic/environmental interactions. The relation between population and the environment in developing countries is also an important part of the human dimensions of global change because environmental degradation in developing countries causes global warming and because continued high rates of population growth in developing countries will make it increasingly difficult if not impossible to reconcile goals for economic growth with the protection of the environment. The research is both theoretical and empirical. Specifically, an agricultural input demand systems model is derived, specified and estimated. This model includes age- and gender- specific labor demand equations. The empirical research relies on Burkina Faso Survey Data and Pakistan Survey Data. The former data set contains very detailed information on agricultural production in Burkina Faso over the period 1981 through 1985, including the use of household and hired labor, by age and sex, for a wide variety of agricultural activities. The latter data are representative of poor households in three distinct agroecological zones in Pakistan and provide very detailed information on the socioeconomic and agricultural characteristics of these families.