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Fertility treatments and the use of twin births as an instrument for fertility

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  • Braakmann, Nils
  • Wildman, John

Abstract

Twin births are often used as an instrument for fertility in models investigating the impact of family size on labour market and child outcomes. However, a large share of twin births (24% in our sample) are the result of fertility treatments, potentially causing twin births to be endogenous and biasing estimates. Using data from the British Millennium Cohort Study we show that (a) mothers with and without fertility treatment are different, (b) twin births are still random after conditioning on fertility treatments, (c) both labour supply regressions and quantity-quality-tradeoff regressions for children’s outcomes relying on the twin birth instrument appear to be biased and (d) the bias makes it less likely to find any results.

Suggested Citation

  • Braakmann, Nils & Wildman, John, 2014. "Fertility treatments and the use of twin births as an instrument for fertility," MPRA Paper 54106, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:54106
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Rosenzweig, Mark R & Wolpin, Kenneth I, 1980. "Testing the Quantity-Quality Fertility Model: The Use of Twins as a Natural Experiment," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(1), pages 227-240, January.
    2. Angrist, Joshua D & Evans, William N, 1998. "Children and Their Parents' Labor Supply: Evidence from Exogenous Variation in Family Size," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(3), pages 450-477, June.
    3. Joyce P. Jacobsen & James Wishart Pearce III & Joshua L. Rosenbloom, 1999. "The Effects of Childbearing on Married Women's Labor Supply and Earnings: Using Twin Births as a Natural Experiment," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 34(3), pages 449-474.
    4. Gary S. Becker & H. Gregg Lewis, 1974. "Interaction between Quantity and Quality of Children," NBER Chapters, in: Economics of the Family: Marriage, Children, and Human Capital, pages 81-90, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Joshua Angrist & Victor Lavy & Analia Schlosser, 2010. "Multiple Experiments for the Causal Link between the Quantity and Quality of Children," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 28(4), pages 773-824, October.
    6. Bronars, Stephen G & Grogger, Jeff, 1994. "The Economic Consequences of Unwed Motherhood: Using Twin Births as a Natural Experiment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(5), pages 1141-1156, December.
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    Cited by:

    1. Bhalotra, Sonia & Clarke, Damian, 2022. "Analysis of Twins," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1428, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    2. Gregory Clark & Neil Cummins & Matthew Curtis, 2020. "Twins Support the Absence of Parity-Dependent Fertility Control in Pretransition Populations," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 57(4), pages 1571-1595, August.
    3. Cummins, Neil & Clark, Gregory & Curtis, Matthew, 2019. "Twins Support Absence of Parity-Dependent Fertility Control in Pre-Transition Western European Populations," CEPR Discussion Papers 13539, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. Florens, Jean-Pierre & Van Bellegem, Sébastien, 2015. "Instrumental variable estimation in functional linear models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 186(2), pages 465-476.
    5. Van Bellegem, Sébastien & Florens, Jean-Pierre, 2014. "Instrumental variable estimation in functional linear models," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2014056, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Twin birth instrument; quantity-quality-tradeoff; labour supply; fertility;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C26 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Instrumental Variables (IV) Estimation
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply

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