Macroeconomic Models of the Family: Positive and Normative Analysis of Fertility Choice in Dynamic Settings

[摘要]P I: Jones， Larry E.，组织机构：明尼苏达大学双子城分校。题目：家庭宏观经济模型：动态环境下生育选择的实证与规范分析。本研究主要研究家庭决策的动态模型及其定量性质。这类决策的三个最重要的特征是：设计夫妻共同的劳动力供给决策，确定要生孩子的数量（和他们的时间）以及这些孩子的教育。这项研究遵循了其他人使用现代的、动态的、一般均衡技术来研究这些决策是如何做出的。生育和教育决策本质上都是前瞻性的选择。这使得将这组工具应用于这些问题特别合适。这项研究涉及定性和定量两个方面，因此，所开发的工具也将在各种其他研究中有用。由于部分重点是建立定量模型，因此可以使用历史数据来检查建模假设的有效性。例如，所建立的模型和为解决这些问题而开发的技术是否能够准确地描述家庭劳动力供给和生育率数据中的长期趋势？该项目的更广泛影响：这项研究有两个方面对更广泛的科学界特别有用。首先，由于本项目建立了生育决策的定量、一般均衡模型，并将其结果与美国和其他国家的时间序列数据进行了比较，由此得出的模型可以被历史学家和人口学家用来帮助预测发展中国家人口的时间路径。这种方法将使未来的研究人员能够确定这一时间路径将如何随着未来事件的变化而变化，例如健康状况的改善和社会保障制度的引入。其次，由于本项目还将现代福利经济学的标准概念扩展到人口规模内生的环境，这些工具将对人口控制的辩论起到有益的补充作用。

ABSTRACTProp ID: SES-0452473 P I: Jones, Larry E. Organization: University of Minnesota-Twin Cities Title: Macroeconomic Models of the Family: Positive and Normative Analysis of Fertility Choice in Dynamic Settings This research focuses on dynamic models of family decision-making and their quantitative properties. Three of the most important features of this type of decision-making are: designing joint labor supply decisions of couples, determining the number of children to have (and their timing) and the education of these children. This research follows others in the use of modern, dynamic, general equilibrium techniques to study how these decisions are made. Both fertility and education decisions are forward looking choices by their nature. This makes the application of this set of tools to these questions particularly appropriate. The research involves both qualitative and quantitative aspects and, as such, the tools developed will be useful in a variety of other studies as well. Since part of the emphasis is on building quantitative models, historical data can be used to check the validity of the modeling assumptions. For example, do the models built and the techniques for solving them developed provide an accurate description of the long term trends that are seen in the data on family labor supply and fertility? Broader Impact of the Project: There are two elements of the research that will be particularly useful for the broader scientific community. First, since this project builds quantitative, general equilibrium models of fertility decisions and compares the results with the data from time series in the US and other countries, the resulting models can be used by historians and demographers to help forecast the time paths of population in developing countries. The methodology is such that it will allow future researchers to determine how this time path will change in response to future events such as improvements in health and the introduction of social security systems. Second, since this project also extends the standard notions of modern Welfare Economics to environments in which population size is endogenous, the tools will be a useful addition to the debate on population control.