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Family Economics
A Category Archive (62 entries)
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November 18, 2009
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
Hasty readers of happiness research often conclude that kids are a disaster for happiness. If you actually look at the size as well as the sign of standard estimates, however, the right conclusion is that kids ever-so-slightly reduce happiness. I... MORE
November 12, 2009
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
According to "mistake" theories of inheritance, people leave bequests because they don't have enough information to spend all their assets before they die.Question: In a world with annuities and negative mortgages, how can anyone continue to believe this story?... MORE
November 9, 2009
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
Last week I read all the major research on the response of fertility to economic incentives. There are actually two distinct literatures. The first focuses on the effect of intentional "birth subsidies" on child-bearing. The second focuses on the unintentional... MORE
October 31, 2009
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
Twin and kinship studies find that parenting has little influence on fertility.* While there is some family resemblance - big and small families run in families - heredity accounts for all or almost all of it. This is a little... MORE
October 29, 2009
Economic Philosophy
Bryan Caplan
I strongly oppose circumcision. In fact, I can't think of a good reason why we shouldn't punish it as child abuse. Whether or not you agree with my conclusion, I think it's hard to deny the following claim: Unless you... MORE
October 27, 2009
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
From chapter 5 of the first draft of Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids: When I was a kid, people often accused others of "breeding like rabbits." If you know much about rabbits, it's not a pretty picture: Rabbits get... MORE
October 23, 2009
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
Number of google hits for "childfree": 1,350,000.Number of google hits for "grandchildfree": 2,380.... MORE
October 22, 2009
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
Contrary to popular belief, the elderly financially support their kids, rather than the other way around. This was true in hunter-gatherer and peasant societies. A neat piece in the JEP shows that it was also true in the U.S. in... MORE
October 17, 2009
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
A striking passage from "Intergenerational Transfers and Inheritance":[A] large and growing difference exists between Germany and Italy in rates of coresidence of young adults with their parents. In Italy, 50% of young women and 70% of young men still live... MORE
October 16, 2009
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
One popular story about the decline in family size over the last two centuries goes like this: Back in the old days, having kids paid. Children started working when they were quite young, and provided for their parents in their... MORE
September 25, 2009
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
From Will Wilkinson, in a 100+ comment discussion at Overcoming Bias:I would guess that number of children is negatively correlated to number of sexual partners.According to the General Social Survey, Will's guess is... correct! The correlation between number of children... MORE
September 12, 2009
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
Some people sincerely like monogamy; other people sincerely don't. Under the circumstances, it seems wise for everyone to just reveal their proclivities and pair up with people who share their expectations. Unfortunately, I don't see this happening. There is a... MORE
September 10, 2009
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
One thing I've learned from seminars: Preferences are almost unimaginably heterogeneous. During a presentation, I'll be thinking, "No one will like this paper." Then lo and behold, this paper has three ardent defenders. And this is the harmonious, genteel GMU... MORE
September 5, 2009
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
During my many recent hours at the neonatal ward, I've finished Gary Becker's A Treatise on the Family. The last chapter is the best, particularly his analysis of the decline of respect for the elderly:Older persons are held in esteem... MORE
September 2, 2009
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
Simon Nicolas Caplan, my third son, was born this morning. Mother, baby, and father are all doing well.Besides the usual suspects, I'd like to thank the late great Julian Simon for putting me on my natalist path. Almost as soon... MORE
August 7, 2009
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
If you based your worldview on fictional television programs, you would conclude that life was a lot better for kids back in the fifties. Nothing seriously bad ever happens to kids on Leave It to Beaver. But on shows like... MORE
July 16, 2009
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
Last year, Tyler named "hypergamy" his word of the day. He called the source "evil," but the Evil One's explanation is admirably elegant:It is sometimes said that men are polygamous and women monogamous...It would be more accurate to say that... MORE
July 13, 2009
Economic Philosophy
Bryan Caplan
In the U.S., 40% of babies are now born out of wedlock. In Japan, only 2% are. Clearly, then, it's better to be a baby in Japan than America, right? For all my skepticism about nurture effects, I'm tempted to... MORE
June 8, 2009
Cost-benefit Analysis
Bryan Caplan
In most disciplines, experts oversell their ability to give useful policy advice. In behavioral genetics, however, experts strangely undersell their ability to give useful policy advice. Here's a striking passage from Plomin, DeFries, McClearn, and McGuffin's leading behavioral genetics textbook:The... MORE
June 3, 2009
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
What is the point of raising kids? On my view, the point is basically consumption. Creating life and watching it grow is a fascinating and rewarding journey. For many parents, though, the main point is actually investment: Taking little savages... MORE
April 23, 2009
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
When I tell parents that twin and adoption studies find small effects of nurture, they often respond, "That's OK. I'm willing to make a big sacrifice to help my kids a small amount."Frankly, it's not clear what these parents have... MORE
April 22, 2009
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
In the comments, Gary asks the $10,000 question:Bryan, I'm mostly on board with Judith Harris's hypothesis, but one thing bothers me: why do parents believe so strongly that they can influence their children? Perhaps parents' intense efforts at influencing their... MORE
Economics of Health Care
Bryan Caplan
Parents - especially moms - spend a lot of time nagging their kids to eat right, get some fresh air and exercise, not smoke, etc. If nagging changed behavior, and there is some validity to popular perceptions about "what's healthy,"... MORE
April 8, 2009
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
Who This Book Is For When I tell people that I'm writing a book called Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids, the most common response is, "Because they'll take care of you in your old age?" Now's a good... MORE
April 1, 2009
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
For clarification, I sent Judy Harris one last email:Me: One last question. Are the following two propositions a correct summary of your view? 1. Shared *family* environment has virtually no effect on personality or outcomes (income, education, health, etc.). AND... MORE
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
[My apologies for formatting problems. Let me know if this still doesn’t look right. - B.C.] Since there was some disagreement about whether I was correctly interpreting Judy Harris‘ The Nurture Assumption, I decided to go straight to the source. ... MORE
March 30, 2009
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
My favorite section in Ellen Galinsky's Ask the Children has children separately grade (A, B, C, D, or F) their moms and dads in twelve areas:1. Being there for me when I am sick?2. Raising me with good values?3. Making... MORE
March 29, 2009
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
In The Limits of Family Influence, David Rowe summarizes some evidence on spousal resemblance:[H]igh spousal correlation coefficients did not appear to be the result of social influence in the marriage; people who had been married a long time were not... MORE
March 27, 2009
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
Here's the conclusion of Daniel Akst's Wall St. Journal review of Parentonomics: It's a pity that Mr. Gans misses the chance to cover the most interesting question an economist might address in the parenting arena: Why he decided to have... MORE
March 26, 2009
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
Bruce Sacerdote has graciously agreed to let me post this reply to my last post. Here's Bruce:Dear Bryan, thanks for the heads up! I am perfectly happy with your description. I would make two key points. First, my effects are... MORE
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
I'm now writing chapter 3 of Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids, entitled "Que Será, Será: The Case for Guilt-Free Parenting." It's basically a parents' eye guide to behavioral genetics. As a result, I'm now reading and/or re-reading a bunch... MORE
March 16, 2009
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
Steve Sailer posted an interesting comment on my critique of Love and Economics: Sure, but you're missing the point about how laissez-faire families affect the genes that children wind up with. Identical twin Jane marries a boring guy with a... MORE
March 2, 2009
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
I assumed it was mostly anti-population Greens, but on closer examination the main haters seem to be fiscal conservatives. But if she gets her own reality show and makes millions, will they withdraw their complaints? Critics might respond that Octomom... MORE
February 26, 2009
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
Parents habitually try to influence what their kids eat. "Eat up." "Clean your plate." "No dessert until you finish your vegetables." "Soda? No, you get milk." At least in the modern U.S., parents' main goals seem to be to (a)... MORE
February 23, 2009
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
In 1975, Ann Landers famously reported that 70% of parents had buyer's remorse: If they had their lives to live over against, they wouldn't have kids. Landers' study subsequently made it into some statistics lectures as an illustration of the... MORE
February 21, 2009
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
When I explain that I'm writing a book called Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids, people often ask me, "Well, why aren't you having any more?" It's a fair question, but one that one should always hesitate to ask -... MORE
January 26, 2009
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
CK, an Ecolog reader, writes:I find your obsession with the topic of people's personal choices to be deeply creepy. Also, the fact that your starting point is that they are in error is a textbook example of bad logic, e.g.,... MORE
January 25, 2009
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
In my experience, virtually the only reason why people don't want more kids is that they don't feel like spending any more time on childcare. The strictly financial cost of another child almost never comes up. Granted, I greatly oversample... MORE
January 23, 2009
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
If you had trouble reading my piece in The Chronicle of Higher Education, here's an ungated version.... MORE
January 20, 2009
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
My editorial on parenting has finally appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education. In it, I summarize some big results from time diary studies (Parental effort has risen sharply in the last few decades) and behavioral genetics (The long-run effect... MORE
January 3, 2009
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
During this holiday season, you may have enjoyed reconnecting with your extended family. But many people have a different reaction. After yet another unpleasant holiday meal, they shake their heads, and silently ask themselves, "Who are these people?" Where else... MORE
December 12, 2008
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
I've previously argued that the avoidance of spousal scorn is one of the main reasons why we buy insurance, and pointed out our lack of sympathy for men. But nothing prepared me for this piece on cryonics and the family:One... MORE
December 8, 2008
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
I humbly submit that The Painted Veil contains the most amazing scene of gender conflict ever filmed. Watch the scene on Youtube, and tell me I'm wrong - and give your alternate selection while you're at it. While you're watching... MORE
November 13, 2008
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
Last night my wife and I finished the final episode of the final season of Gilmore Girls. If you haven't heard of it, it's a dramedy about a free-spirited single mom, Lorelai, and her studious daughter, Rory. Since they're only... MORE
September 16, 2008
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
If you think that Nudge doesn't matter, take a look at marriage. Only 5-10% of marriages have prenups; everyone else goes with the "default option" - the family law of the state in which they reside. Why do people go... MORE
August 12, 2008
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
Rich families are once again having lots of kids (see here, here, and here). From Time:While 34.3% of married women ages 40 to 44 had four or more children in 1976, only 11.5% did in 2004, according to the Current... MORE
August 1, 2008
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
Ectogenesis basically means the creation of new human life without pregnancy. Instead of incubating the fetus in a mother's womb, there'd be an artificial incubation tank. Prospective parents would go through the first stages of in vitro fertilization; but instead... MORE
July 23, 2008
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
Children of divorce are more likely to eventually get divorced themselves. But why? Earlier behavioral genetic work concluded that, contrary to popular platitudes, the transmission mechanism is heredity, not environment. As Judith Harris put it:A twin study of 1500 pairs... MORE
July 17, 2008
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
To counter Tyler's "Department of Yikes" series, I'm officially inaugurating my "Department of Yay." First in my series: The American baby boomlet. Thanks in part to Hispanic immigrants, the U.S. has rebounded to replacement rate fertility. Today's USA Today has... MORE
July 15, 2008
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
Sacerdote and Feyrer have an intriguing new paper on fertility. Background: Some rich countries - including Japan, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Greece - have extremely low fertility, while others - including the U.S., Sweden, and France - are only moderately... MORE
July 6, 2008
Family Economics
Arnold Kling
Jonathan Guryan, Erik Hurst, and Melissa S. Kearney find that time spent taking care of children is positively correlated with education. They write, We offer four possible explanations for why child care patterns by education differ from the leisure and... MORE
July 1, 2008
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
If you want to play around with the U.N.'s four main population projection methods, you can do so here. If you use the Constant-Fertility Variant - which seems the most reasonable of the four for developed countries - the numbers... MORE
June 30, 2008
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
Reading Eric Turkheimer's CV gives me the uncomfortable feeling that I've fallen behind the research frontier in behavioral genetics. Just in the last few years, he's published dozens of careful papers (almost all available ungated from his webpage) that challenge... MORE
June 29, 2008
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
Tyler already blogged the best sentences from this excellent piece on population decline. So I've decided to supply a complement: A brief critique of U.N. population projections. Ben Wattenberg explains that the U.N.'s World Population Prospects gives four basic projections:... MORE
June 16, 2008
Income Distribution
Arnold Kling
James Heckman writes, Family environments of young children are major predictors of cognitive and socioemotional abilities, as well as a variety of outcomes such as crime and health. ...Family environments in the U.S. and many other countries around the world... MORE
June 15, 2008
Family Economics
Arnold Kling
He writes, Obviously, some individuals borrow too much, and get caught in a spiral of high interest rate payments, bankruptcy, and insufficient assets as they age. Nevertheless, on the whole the growth of credit instruments available to consumers has been... MORE
June 14, 2008
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
I don't regret anything in my life prior to the conception of my sons. This may sound like sentimental nonsense, but I tell you it's true. Here's my argument: 1. Basic biology: A man produces hundreds of millions of sperm... MORE
June 13, 2008
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
What was your biggest act of rebellion against your parents? Did your rebellion last? I'll start: For me, it was becoming an atheist, and refusing to attend church (starting at age 16). The rebellion lasts to this day. How about... MORE
June 12, 2008
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
If you're having a high-risk pregnancy, it's pretty obvious that you'll be more likely to have your fetus tested for birth defects and other problems. But is risk the only factor that predicts demand for fetal testing? Nope. Here's an... MORE
June 11, 2008
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
Angelina Jolie has more than enough money to make most of the downside of kids disappear. But now that she's pregnant with twins, all her money won't save her. Her reaction:"It makes me feel that all the things about my... MORE
May 9, 2008
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
Here's a deeply important passage from my favorite survey of the time diary literature:One of Galinsky's more surprising findings centered around a question she posed to both children and parents: "If you were granted one wish to change the way... MORE
April 24, 2008
Family Economics
Bryan Caplan
After blogging this...If you look at the data - the same GSS data you favorably cite - you'll see that kids usually have a smaller negative effect on the happiness of moms than the happiness of dads. The natural inference... MORE
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