American Economic Review
ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)
All for One? Family Size and Children's Educational Distribution under Credit Constraints
American Economic Review
vol. 104,
no. 5, May 2014
(pp. 365–69)
Abstract
This paper examines the possibility that a child's years of schooling could increase in the number of siblings, instead of being diminished by competition for parents' resources: if unable to finance the education of their younger children, parents may do so through their older children's labor income. We examine this possibility in a model combining convex returns to education and credit constraints. Our model predicts correlations among family size, years of schooling and birth order, which would not exist when either of these two elements is absent. Empirical patterns shown in the United States, Mexico, and South Korea support the model predictions.Citation
Lafortune, Jeanne, and Soohyung Lee. 2014. "All for One? Family Size and Children's Educational Distribution under Credit Constraints." American Economic Review, 104 (5): 365–69. DOI: 10.1257/aer.104.5.365Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D14 Household Saving; Personal Finance
- J12 Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure; Domestic Abuse
- J13 Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
- O15 Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration