IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cor/louvrp/2596.html

Optimal fertility along the life cycle

Author

Listed:
  • PESTIEAU, Pierre
  • PONTHIERE, Gregory

Abstract

We explore the optimal fertility age-pattern in a four-period OLG economy with physical capital accumulation. For that purpose, we .rstly compare the dynamics of two closed economies, Early and Late Islands, which di¤er only in the timing of births. On Early Island, children are born from parents in young adulthood, whereas, on Late Island, children are born from parents in older adulthood. We show that, unlike on Early Island, there exists no stable stationary equilibrium on Late Island, which exhibits cyclical dynamics. We also characterize the social optimum in each economy, and show that Samuelson.s Serendipity Theorem still holds. Finally, we study the dynamics and social optimum of an economy with interior fertility rates during the reproduction period. It is shown that various fertility age-patterns are compatible with the social optimum, as long as these yield the optimal cohort growth rate. The Serendipity Theorem remains valid in that broader demographic environment.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • PESTIEAU, Pierre & PONTHIERE, Gregory, 2014. "Optimal fertility along the life cycle," LIDAM Reprints CORE 2596, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    • Handle: RePEc:cor:louvrp:2596
    Note: In : Economic Theory, 55(1), 185-224, 2014
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a
    for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gregory Ponthiere, 2016. "The contribution of improved joint survival conditions to living standards: an equivalent consumption approach," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 46(2), pages 407-449, February.
    2. d'Albis, Hippolyte & Greulich, Angela & Ponthiere, Gregory, 2018. "Development, fertility and childbearing age: A Unified Growth Theory," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 177(C), pages 461-494.
    3. Pierre Pestieau & Gregory Ponthiere, 2017. "Optimal fertility under age-dependent labour productivity," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 30(2), pages 621-646, April.
    4. de la Croix, David & Pommeret, Aude, 2021. "Childbearing postponement, its option value, and the biological clock," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    5. Gregory Ponthiere, 2016. "Utilitarian population ethics and births timing," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 117(3), pages 189-238, April.
    6. Gregory Ponthiere, 2024. "Fertility, heterogeneity, and the Golden Rule," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 26(1), February.
    7. VAN VYVE, Mathieu, 2011. "Linear prices for non-convex electricity markets: models and algorithms," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2011050, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    8. Thomas I. Renström & Luca Spataro, 2015. "Population Growth and Human Capital: A Welfarist Approach," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 83, pages 110-141, December.
    9. Pierre Pestieau & Gregory Ponthiere, 2013. "Childbearing Age, Family Allowances, and Social Security," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 80(2), pages 385-413, October.
    10. Pestieau, Pierre & Ponthiere, Gregory, 2016. "Long-term care and births timing," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 340-357.
    11. Asako Ohinata & Dimitrios Varvarigos, 2020. "Demographic Transition and Fertility Rebound in Economic Development," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 122(4), pages 1640-1670, October.
    12. Shiyu Li & Shuanglin Lin, 2024. "Social security reforms, capital accumulation, and welfare: A notional defined contribution system vs a modified PAYG system," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 37(1), pages 1-34, March.
    13. Bhalotra, Sonia & Venkataramani, Atheendar & Walther, Selma, 2018. "Fertility and labor market responses to reductions in mortality," ISER Working Paper Series 2018-15, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    14. Klaus Prettner & David Canning, 2014. "Increasing life expectancy and optimal retirement in general equilibrium," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 56(1), pages 191-217, May.
    15. Momota, Akira & Sakagami, Tomoya & Shibata, Akihisa, 2019. "Reexamination of the Serendipity Theorem from the stability viewpoint," Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 85(1), pages 43-70, March.
    16. Pierre Pestieau & Gregory Ponthiere, 2015. "Optimal life-cycle fertility in a Barro-Becker economy," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 28(1), pages 45-87, January.
    17. Abad, Nicolas & Etner, Johanna & Raffin, Natacha & Seegmuller, Thomas, 2025. "New fertility patterns: The role of human versus physical capital," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 228(C).
    18. Gordon, Sidartha & Marlats, Chantal & Ménager, Lucie, 2021. "Observation delays in teams and effort cycles," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 276-298.
    19. Johanna Etner & Natacha Raffin & Thomas Seegmuller, 2022. "Postponement, career development and fertility rebound," AMSE Working Papers 2225, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France.
    20. Augusto Ruperez Micola & Albert Banal-Estanol, 2011. "Production intermittence in sport markets," DEM Discussion Paper Series 11-15, Department of Economics at the University of Luxembourg.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E13 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - Neoclassical
    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cor:louvrp:2596. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Alain GILLIS (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/coreebe.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.