Bryan Caplan and Arnold Kling

Family Economics

A Category Archive (19 entries)

The Lorelai Paradox

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

Nudging Marriage

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

Kids, Opera, and Local Status

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

The Demand for Ectogenesis

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

Does Parental Divorce Cause Offspring Divorce?

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

Department of Yay: The American Baby Boomlet

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

Sacerdote, Feyrer, Kids, and Gender Conflict

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

What About Pets?

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

Population Projection Tool

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

Eric Turkheimer's CV

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

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

Heckman on Inequality

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

Gary Becker on Soaring Consumer Credit

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

Parenthood as the Trump of All Past Regret

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

The Persistence of Rebellion

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

Public Opinion About Fetal Testing

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

Jolie on Pregnancy: Do You Believe Her?

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

Listen to the Children

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

Correction: Men, Women, Kids, and Happiness

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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