The Effects of Economic Development on Population Growth

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9308836 Rosenzweig A major and long-standing issue in the study of the long-term evolution of the global economy is the relative importance of the contributions of economic development and specific human resource program interventions to changes in population growth. This question not only is relevant to the understanding of global change but has a major bearing on a fundamental policy question of how resources should be allocated between programs that directly affect demographic outcomes, such as family planning interventions, and broader development programs that increase overall resources. This project will provide quantitative evidence from the analysis of unique source of household data from India on the relative importance of economic growth, technological change and increased investments in human resource programs in affecting population growth. In this project newly available multi-level and longitudinal household data from a large national probability sample of over 4,000 rural households in India covering the period 1968-1981, merged with supplementary area-specific data, will be used to examine comprehensively the effects of economic development and program interventions on population change. The survey documents a period of time in India which conforms closely to a natural experiment in which the source of economic development, the introduction and improvement of high-yield seed varieties, exogenously affected the wealth and incomes, the rates of return to schooling and wages and prices in areas of India in which new seeds could be grown. The data will be used to quantify and compare across districts in India differentially exposed to the opportunities presented by the new technologies the level and change in rural fertility and mortality within the context of a dynamic model of the household. Based on econometric analyses of the models, the mechanisms by which economic development affects these demographic outcomes, such as by increasing i ncomes, changing the rates of return to schooling or altering the productive values of children's and women's time, will also be identified. The data will be used to measure the impact of education, health and family planning programs, net of changes in economic opportunities, on fertility and mortality using methods that will take into account the non-random distribution of the programs. ***