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An urban legend?! Power rationing, fertility and its effects on mothers

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  • Fetzer, Thiemo
  • Pardo Reinoso, Oliver Enrique
  • Shanghavi, Amar

Abstract

This paper answers the question whether extreme power rationing can induce changes in human fertility and thus, generate “mini baby booms”. We study a period of extensive power rationing in Colombia that lasted for most of 1992 and see whether this has increased births in the subsequent year, exploiting variation from a newly constructed measure of the extent of power rationing. We find that power rationing increased the probability that a mother had a baby by 4 percent and establish that this effect is permanent as mothers who had a black out baby were not able to adjust their total long-run fertility. Exploiting this variation, we show that women who had a black-out baby find themselves in worse socio-economic conditions more than a decade later, highlighting potential social costs of unplanned motherhood.

Suggested Citation

  • Fetzer, Thiemo & Pardo Reinoso, Oliver Enrique & Shanghavi, Amar, 2013. "An urban legend?! Power rationing, fertility and its effects on mothers," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 121786, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:121786
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    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/121786/
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    fertility; infrastructure; blackouts; unplanned parenthood;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • O18 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods

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