Fertility and long-term economic growth

Abstract

Empirical studies have generally found that higher fertility has a negative or insignificant effect on economic growth. This article argues that this is because existing studies have failed to capture the long-term lagged effects of fertility. By estimating a long-term lagged panel model using data from 137 countries, I find that higher fertility first reduces and then increases economic growth, and the long-term average effect is significantly positive. This finding is robust when focusing on countries at different development levels, exploiting exogenous fertility shocks from global family planning campaigns, and capitalizing on within-country fertility variation resulting from China's one-child policy.