The Baby Boom and Baby Bust

Economie D'avant Garde, Research Report No. 1

53 Pages Posted: 19 Aug 2002

See all articles by Jeremy Greenwood

Jeremy Greenwood

University of Pennsylvania - Department of Economics; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Ananth Seshadri

University of Wisconsin - Madison - Department of Economics

Guillaume Vandenbroucke

Federal Reserve Banks - Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

Date Written: August 2002

Abstract

What caused the baby boom? And, can it be explained within the context of the secular decline in fertility that has occurred over the last 200 years? The hypothesis is that:

(i) The secular decline in fertility is due to the relentless rise in real wages that increased the opportunity cost of having children.

(ii) The baby boom is explained by an atypical burst of technological progress in the household sector that occurred in the middle of the last century. This lowered the cost of having children.

A model is developed in an attempt to account, quantitatively, for both the baby boom and bust.

Keywords: Baby boom, baby bust, fertility, household production, technological progress

JEL Classification: E1, J1, N3, 03

Suggested Citation

Greenwood, Jeremy and Seshadri, Ananth and Vandenbroucke, Guillaume, The Baby Boom and Baby Bust (August 2002). Economie D'avant Garde, Research Report No. 1, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=322821 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.322821

Jeremy Greenwood (Contact Author)

University of Pennsylvania - Department of Economics ( email )

Ronald O. Perelman Center for Political Science
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Philadelphia, PA 19104-6297
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215-898-1505 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://jeremygreenwood.net

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

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Ananth Seshadri

University of Wisconsin - Madison - Department of Economics ( email )

1180 Observatory Drive
Madison, WI 53706
United States
608-262-6196 (Phone)
608-263-3876 (Fax)

Guillaume Vandenbroucke

Federal Reserve Banks - Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis ( email )

411 Locust St
Saint Louis, MO 63011
United States
+1 314 444 8717 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://www.guillaumevdb.net/

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