IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/prt/dpaper/11_2008.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Long-run Effects of Household Liquidity Constraints and Taxation on Fertility, Education, Saving, and Growth

Author

Listed:
  • Erasmo Papagni

Abstract

This paper investigates economic growth under liquidity constraints by taking into account the choices of fertility, human capital and saving. In a model of four overlapping generations, parents are altruistic towards their offspring and finance their education investment. The government provides education subsidies to young adult parents and levies taxes on income of the adult generation. Sensitivity analysis on borrowing limits and tax parameters highlights effects with opposite sign on the main endogenous variables at steady state. A lift in liquidity constraints decreases savings and capital accumulation and this effect is responsible for the ambiguous sign of comparative statics on the rate of fertility and on human capital investment. From model simulation, we derive an inverted U-shaped curve relating the borrowing limit with fertility, education and growth, meaning that financial reforms in the less developed countries have positive effects on the economy in the long-run, even if they raise fertility and reduce savings. Greater government subsidies to human capital investments and lower income taxes have positive effects on savings and fertility. The same parameters present ambiguous effects on education investments and growth. Numerical simulations show that a) human capital investment has an inverted U-shaped relation with income taxes and education subsidies; b) economic growth decreases with greater income taxes and increases with higher education subsidies.

Suggested Citation

  • Erasmo Papagni, 2008. "The Long-run Effects of Household Liquidity Constraints and Taxation on Fertility, Education, Saving, and Growth," Discussion Papers 11_2008, D.E.S. (Department of Economic Studies), University of Naples "Parthenope", Italy.
  • Handle: RePEc:prt:dpaper:11_2008
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://economia.uniparthenope.it/ise/sito/DP/DP_11_2008.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. De Gregorio, Jose & Kim, Se-Jik, 2000. "Credit Markets with Differences in Abilities: Education, Distribution, and Growth," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 41(3), pages 579-607, August.
    2. Willem H. Buiter & Kenneth M. Kletzer, 1995. "Capital Mobility, Fiscal Policy, and Growth under Self-Financing of Human Capital Formation," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 28(s1), pages 163-194, November.
    3. Gary S. Becker & Kevin M. Murphy & Robert Tamura, 1994. "Human Capital, Fertility, and Economic Growth," NBER Chapters, in: Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis with Special Reference to Education, Third Edition, pages 323-350, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. David Andolfatto & Martin Gervais, 2006. "Human Capital Investment and Debt Constraints," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 9(1), pages 52-67, January.
    5. Cox, Donald & Jappelli, Tullio, 1990. "Credit Rationing and Private Transfers: Evidence from Survey Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 72(3), pages 445-454, August.
    6. De Gregorio, Jose, 1996. "Borrowing constraints, human capital accumulation, and growth," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 49-71, February.
    7. Galor, Oded & Zang, Hyoungsoo, 1997. "Fertility, income distribution, and economic growth: Theory and cross-country evidence," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 197-229, May.
    8. Michele BOLDRIN & Mariacristina DE NARDI & Larry E. JONES, 2015. "Fertility and Social Security," JODE - Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 81(3), pages 261-299, September.
    9. David Croix & Philippe Michel, 2007. "Education and growth with endogenous debt constraints," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 33(3), pages 509-530, December.
    10. W.H. Buiter & K Kletzer, 1995. "Capital Mobility," CEP Discussion Papers dp0245, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    11. Oded Galor, 2007. "Discrete Dynamical Systems," Springer Books, Springer, edition 1, number 978-3-540-36776-5, September.
    12. de la Croix, David & Doepke, Matthias, 2004. "Public versus private education when differential fertility matters," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 607-629, April.
    13. Lance Lochner & Alexander Monge-Naranjo, 2002. "Human Capital Formation with Endogenous Credit Constraints," NBER Working Papers 8815, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Galor, Oded & Weil, David N, 1996. "The Gender Gap, Fertility, and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(3), pages 374-387, June.
    15. Patricia Apps & Ray Rees, 2004. "Fertility, Taxation and Family Policy," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 106(4), pages 745-763, December.
    16. Robert Haveman & Barbara Wolfe, 1995. "The Determinants of Children's Attainments: A Review of Methods and Findings," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 33(4), pages 1829-1878, December.
    17. Willis, Robert J, 1973. "A New Approach to the Economic Theory of Fertility Behavior," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(2), pages 14-64, Part II, .
    18. Costas Azariadis & Luisa Lambertini, 2003. "Endogenous Debt Constraints in Lifecycle Economies," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 70(3), pages 461-487.
    19. William L. Parish & Robert J. Willis, 1993. "Daughters, Education, and Family Budgets Taiwan Experiences," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 28(4), pages 863-898.
    20. David de la CROIX, 2014. "Economic Growth," LIDAM Discussion Papers IRES 2014019, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    21. Schultz, T. Paul, 1993. "Demand for children in low income countries," Handbook of Population and Family Economics, in: M. R. Rosenzweig & Stark, O. (ed.), Handbook of Population and Family Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 8, pages 349-430, Elsevier.
    22. Cigno, Alessandro & Rosati, Furio C., 1996. "Jointly determined saving and fertility behaviour: Theory, and estimates for Germany, Italy, UK and USA," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(8), pages 1561-1589, November.
    23. Mark Pin & Shahidur Khandker & Signe-Mary Mckernan & M. Latif, 1999. "Credit programs for the poor and reproductive behavior in low-income countries: Are the reported causal relationships the result of heterogeneity bias?," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 36(1), pages 1-21, February.
    24. Timothy J. Kehoe & David K. Levine, 1993. "Debt-Constrained Asset Markets," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(4), pages 865-888.
    25. Norman Loayza & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel & Luis Servén, 2000. "What Drives Private Saving Across the World?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 82(2), pages 165-181, May.
    26. Hanushek, Eric A, 1992. "The Trade-Off between Child Quantity and Quality," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(1), pages 84-117, February.
    27. Azariadis, Costas & Bullard, James & Ohanian, Lee, 2004. "Trend-reverting fluctuations in the life-cycle model," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 119(2), pages 334-356, December.
    28. Isaac Ehrlich & Jinyoung Kim, 2007. "Social Security and Demographic Trends: Theory and Evidence from the International Experience," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 10(1), pages 55-77, January.
    29. Jappelli, Tullio & Pagano, Marco, 1999. "The Welfare Effects of Liquidity Constraints," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 51(3), pages 410-430, July.
    30. Behrman, Jere R & Pollak, Robert A & Taubman, Paul, 1989. "Family Resources, Family Size, and Access to Financing for College Education," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(2), pages 398-419, April.
    31. de la Croix,David & Michel,Philippe, 2002. "A Theory of Economic Growth," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521001151, October.
    32. Tullio Jappelli & Marco Pagano, 1994. "Saving, Growth, and Liquidity Constraints," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(1), pages 83-109.
    33. repec:ucp:bknber:9780226740867 is not listed on IDEAS
    34. Papagni, Erasmo, 2006. "Household borrowing constraints, fertility dynamics, and economic growth," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 27-54, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Aeggarchat Sirisankanan, 2020. "Credit constraints and the trade‐off between family size and children's investment in Thailand," Asian-Pacific Economic Literature, The Crawford School, The Australian National University, vol. 34(2), pages 133-151, November.

    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. David Croix & Philippe Michel, 2007. "Education and growth with endogenous debt constraints," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 33(3), pages 509-530, December.
    2. Filoso, Valerio & Papagni, Erasmo, 2015. "Fertility choice and financial development," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 160-177.
    3. Wang, Min, 2010. "Essays on Environment, Natural Resource, Growth and Development," ISU General Staff Papers 201001010800002824, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    4. Papagni, Erasmo, 2006. "Household borrowing constraints, fertility dynamics, and economic growth," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 27-54, January.
    5. Maria Sarigiannidou & Theodore Palivos, 2012. "A Modern Theory of Kuznets’ Hypothesis," Working Papers 201202, Texas Christian University, Department of Economics.
    6. Simone Valente, 2005. "Tax Policy and Human Capital Formation with Public Investment in Education," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 86(3), pages 229-258, December.
    7. Chen, Hung-Ju, 2013. "Child Allowances, Educational Subsidies and Economic Growth," MPRA Paper 51279, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Kitaura, Koji, 2012. "Education, borrowing constraints and growth," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 116(3), pages 575-578.
    9. Ryo Horii & Akiomi Kitagawa & Koichi Futagami, 2008. "Availability Of Higher Education And Long‐Term Economic Growth," The Japanese Economic Review, Japanese Economic Association, vol. 59(2), pages 156-177, June.
    10. Bhattacharya, Joydeep & Qiao, Xue & Wang, Min, 2016. "Endogenous Borrowing Constraints And Wealth Inequality," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(6), pages 1413-1431, September.
    11. Min Wang, 2014. "Optimal education policies under endogenous borrowing constraints," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 55(1), pages 135-159, January.
    12. 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.
    13. AZARIADIS, Costas & de la CROIX, David, 2002. "Growth or equality ? Losers and gainers from financial reform," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2002058, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    14. Michael Hatcher & Panayiotis M. Pourpourides, 2023. "Does the impact of private education on growth differ at different levels of credit market development?," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(1), pages 291-322, February.
    15. Author ERasmo Papagni, 2002. "Human capital, fertility and growth under borrowing constraints," GE, Growth, Math methods 0205001, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 03 May 2002.
    16. Day, Creina & Guest, Ross, 2016. "Fertility and female wages: A new link via house prices," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 121-132.
    17. Ben Fine, 1998. "Endogenous Growth Theory: A Critical Assessment," Working Papers 80, Department of Economics, SOAS University of London, UK.
    18. Alexander M. Danzer & Lennard Zyska, 2023. "Pensions and Fertility: Microeconomic Evidence," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 15(2), pages 126-165, May.
    19. Magalhães, Graziella & Turchick, David, 2022. "Growth and inequality under different hierarchical education regimes," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    20. Destrée, Nicolas & Gente, Karine & Nourry, Carine, 2021. "Migration, remittances and accumulation of human capital with endogenous debt constraints," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 38-60.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    -;

    JEL classification:

    • O40 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - General
    • O16 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Financial Markets; Saving and Capital Investment; Corporate Finance and Governance
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making

    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:prt:dpaper:11_2008. 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: Antonietta Milano (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/isnavit.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.