IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/wpaper/halshs-00472732.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Mortality Differential, Labor Taxation And Growth: What Do We Learn From The Barro-Becker Model?

Author

Listed:
  • Thomas Seegmuller

    (GREQAM - Groupement de Recherche en Économie Quantitative d'Aix-Marseille - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - AMU - Aix Marseille Université - ECM - École Centrale de Marseille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

  • Stefano Bosi

    (THEMA - Théorie économique, modélisation et applications - UCP - Université de Cergy Pontoise - Université Paris-Seine - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

Abstract

We revisit the seminal paper on endogenous fertility by Barro and Becker (1989) taking into account households' heterogeneity in terms of capital endowments, mortality differential and cost per surviving child. Focusing on an endogenous growth version, we show at first that there exists a unique balanced growth path (BGP) where the population growth rates of all dynasties are identical. Then, we study the long-run effects of shocks on mortality rates (such as epidemics), mortality differential and total factor productivity (TFP) on the economic and demographic growth rates. The main mechanism rests on the adjustment of the average rearing cost of a surviving child. Finally, we extend the model considering the effects of labor taxation. We find that a higher tax rate may, on the one side, enhance growth but, on the other side, raise wealth inequalities.

Suggested Citation

  • Thomas Seegmuller & Stefano Bosi, 2010. "Mortality Differential, Labor Taxation And Growth: What Do We Learn From The Barro-Becker Model?," Working Papers halshs-00472732, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-00472732
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00472732
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-00472732/document
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Oded_Galor, 2004. "From Stagnation to Growth:Unified Growth Theory," Working Papers 2004-15, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    2. Cecilia Garcia-Penalosa & Eve Caroli & Philippe Aghion, 1999. "Inequality and Economic Growth: The Perspective of the New Growth Theories," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(4), pages 1615-1660, December.
    3. David de la Croix & Matthias Doepke, 2003. "Inequality and Growth: Why Differential Fertility Matters," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(4), pages 1091-1113, September.
    4. repec:dau:papers:123456789/10091 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Galor, Oded, 2005. "From Stagnation to Growth: Unified Growth Theory," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 4, pages 171-293, Elsevier.
    6. Gary S. Becker & Robert J. Barro, 1988. "A Reformulation of the Economic Theory of Fertility," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 103(1), pages 1-25.
    7. David Croix & Alessandro Sommacal, 2009. "A Theory of Medical Effectiveness, Differential Mortality, Income Inequality and Growth for Pre-Industrial England," Mathematical Population Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(1), pages 2-35.
    8. N. Gregory Mankiw & David Romer & David Weil, 1990. "A Contribution to the Empirics of Economic Growth," Working Papers 1990-24, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    9. Matthias Doepke, 2005. "Child mortality and fertility decline: Does the Barro-Becker model fit the facts?," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 18(2), pages 337-366, June.
    10. Barro, Robert J, 1990. "Government Spending in a Simple Model of Endogenous Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(5), pages 103-126, October.
    11. Robert A. Becker, 1980. "On the Long-Run Steady State in a Simple Dynamic Model of Equilibrium with Heterogeneous Households," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 95(2), pages 375-382.
    12. Dahan, Momi & Tsiddon, Daniel, 1998. "Demographic Transition, Income Distribution, and Economic Growth," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 3(1), pages 29-52, March.
    13. Lars Ljungqvist & Thomas J. Sargent, 2004. "Recursive Macroeconomic Theory, 2nd Edition," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 2, volume 1, number 026212274x, December.
    14. N. Gregory Mankiw & David Romer & David N. Weil, 1992. "A Contribution to the Empirics of Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(2), pages 407-437.
    15. Barro, Robert J & Becker, Gary S, 1989. "Fertility Choice in a Model of Economic Growth," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(2), pages 481-501, March.
    16. Robert A. Becker, 2006. "Equilibrium Dynamics with Many Agents," Springer Books, in: Rose-Anne Dana & Cuong Le Van & Tapan Mitra & Kazuo Nishimura (ed.), Handbook on Optimal Growth 1, chapter 13, pages 385-442, Springer.
    17. repec:cor:louvrp:-1676 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Stefano Bosi & Thomas Seegmuller, 2012. "Mortality Differential and Growth: What do we Learn From the Barro-Becker Model?," Mathematical Population Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(1), pages 27-50, January.
    2. Dierk Herzer & Holger Strulik & Sebastian Vollmer, 2012. "The long-run determinants of fertility: one century of demographic change 1900–1999," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 17(4), pages 357-385, December.
    3. Melindi-Ghidi, Paolo & Seegmuller, Thomas, 2019. "The love for children hypothesis and the multiplicity of fertility rates," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 89-100.
    4. William Lord & Peter Rangazas, 2006. "Fertility and development: the roles of schooling and family production," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 11(3), pages 229-261, September.
    5. Jones, C.I., 2016. "The Facts of Economic Growth," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 3-69, Elsevier.
    6. Larry E. Jones & Alice Schoonbroodt & Michèle Tertilt, 2010. "Fertility Theories: Can They Explain the Negative Fertility-Income Relationship?," NBER Chapters, in: Demography and the Economy, pages 43-100, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Claude Diebolt & Faustine Perrin, 2013. "From Stagnation to Sustained Growth: The Role of Female Empowerment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(3), pages 545-549, May.
    8. Sunde, Uwe & Cervellati, Matteo, 2007. "Human Capital, Mortality and Fertility: A Unified Theory of the Economic and Demographic Transition," CEPR Discussion Papers 6384, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    9. Luca Gori & Luciano Fanti, 2007. "From the Malthusian to the Modern Growth Regime in an OLG Model with Unions," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 10(14), pages 1-10.
    10. Ademola Obafemi Young, 2019. "Growth Impacts of Income Inequality: Empirical Evidence From Nigeria," Research in World Economy, Research in World Economy, Sciedu Press, vol. 10(3), pages 226-262, December.
    11. Marla Ripoll & Juan Carlos Cordoba, 2011. "A Contribution to the Economic Theory of Fertility," 2011 Meeting Papers 1207, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    12. Luciano Fanti & Luca Gori & Fabio Tramontana, 2014. "Endogenous lifetime, accidental bequests and economic growth," Decisions in Economics and Finance, Springer;Associazione per la Matematica, vol. 37(1), pages 81-98, April.
    13. Ünal Töngür & Adem Yavuz Elveren, 2016. "The impact of military spending and income inequality on economic growth in Turkey," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(3), pages 433-452, June.
    14. Boucekkine, R. & Martínez, B. & Ruiz-Tamarit, J.R., 2013. "Growth vs. level effect of population change on economic development: An inspection into human-capital-related mechanisms," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 312-334.
    15. Carolyn Chisadza & Manoel Bittencourt, 2015. "Education and Fertility: Panel Evidence from sub-Saharan Africa," Working Papers 201526, University of Pretoria, Department of Economics.
    16. Luca GORI & Enrico LUPI & Piero MANFREDI & Mauro SODINI, 2020. "A Contribution to the Theory of Economic Development and the Demographic Transition: Fertility Reversal under the HIV Epidemic," JODE - Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 86(2), pages 125-155, June.
    17. Holger Strulik & Jacob Weisdorf, 2008. "Birth, Death, and Development: A Simple Unified Growth Theory," Discussion Papers 08-32, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    18. Amparo Castelló-Climent, 2010. "Channels through Which Human Capital Inequality Influences Economic Growth," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 4(4), pages 394-450.
    19. Sunha Myong & JungJae Park & Junjian Yi, 2021. "Social Norms and Fertility," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 19(5), pages 2429-2466.
    20. Frederic Tournemaine & Christopher Tsoukis, 2018. "The Great Transition: Implications From Environmental Policy For The Quality–Quantity Trade-Off In Children-Rearing," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 63(05), pages 1155-1174, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    endogenous fertility; heterogeneous households; mortality differential; labor taxation; endogenous growth;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:hal:wpaper:halshs-00472732. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    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.