Welfare Benefits and Family Structure: A Reconcillation

描述（由申请人提供）：关于 生育、婚姻、同居和家庭结构方面的福利 将军在过去的十年里成长了起来。这一趋势的核心是 文献倾向于认为，福利待遇在 方向许多在许多人假设的方向上具有一些效果（例如， 更高的福利待遇导致结婚率降低和未婚率增加 生育率），但围绕生育率的不确定性很大。 影响的大小，甚至可能是它的存在，因为大的 不同研究中估计值的离散度。这种缺乏共识， 研究结果削弱了研究对决策者的影响， 通常认为学术研究是不确定的，或者， 能够支持任何结论。研究中缺乏共识 调查结果削弱了研究对政策制定者的影响，他们经常 认为学术研究是不确定的，或者是能够 支持任何结论。该项目将通过开展 一系列的复制、鲁棒性和协调研究， 缩小过去研究工作的差异，并试图 就影响的存在和大小达成共识。该项目将 分为一个主要阶段，其中解释了研究之间的差异 和第二阶段，在第二阶段中，使用统计数据选择“最佳”模型， 规格测试和新规格测试。在主要和主要 阶段，几项主要研究的估计值将首先使用 相同的数据集，模型，并估计模型中使用的每篇论文上的 在其他论文中使用的数据集，尽可能使用相同的 样本，变量定义和计量经济学方法;然后差异 研究之间的研究之间的差异将追溯到每一个这些 因素-相同变量的基本数据集的差异; 变量定义;在二次抽样人群中;以及在模型规格和 经济计量方法第二阶段将包括质量标准测试， 选择替代模型规格以及更详细的 对涉及家庭重要性的几个假设的审查 背景、男性和女性工资的影响以及替代统计数据 规范.

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): A substantial literature on the effect of welfare benefits on fertility, marriage, co-habitation, and family structure in general has grown up over the last decade. The central tendency of this literature tends to suggest that welfare benefits have some effect in the direction many have some effect in the direction many have hypothesized (e.g., higher welfare benefits leading to lesser marriage rates and greater nonmarital fertility rates) but there is considerable uncertainty surrounding the magnitude of the effect, and possibly even its existence, because of the large dispersion in estimates across different studies. This lack of consensus in research findings has weakened the impact of the research on policy-makers, who often regard the academic research as inconclusive or, alternatively, as capable of supporting any conclusion. This lack of consensus in research findings has weakened the impact of the research on policy-makers, who often regard the academic research as inconclusive or alternatively, as capable of supporting any conclusion. This project will address this problem by conducting a series of replication, robustness, and reconciliation studies in an attempt to narrow the differences across past research efforts and in an attempt to build a consensus for the existence and size of effects. The project will be divided into a primary phase in which difference across studies are explained and a secondary phase in which "best" models are chosen using statistical specification tests and new specifications tested. In the major and primary phase, the estimates from several major studies will first be replicated using the same data sets, models, and estimating the models used in each paper on the data sets used in the other papers, using the greatest extent possible the same samples, variable definitions, and econometric methods; then the differences between studies between studies will be traced to differences in each of these factors--differences in the underlying data sets for the same variables; in variable definition; in subsampled populations; and in model specification and econometric method. The secondary phase will consist of specification test to choose among the alternative model specifications as well as a more detailed examination of several hypotheses involving the importance of family background, the influence of male and female wages, and alternative statistical specifications.