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Econ 541 - Winter Quarter

Preliminary Reading list

Textbook

John Ermisch (2003). An Economic Analysis of the Family. Princeton University Press.

General

Becker, Gary S. (1991). A Treatise on the Family. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, enlarged edition.

Bergstrom, Theodore (1997). "A Survey of Theories of the Family." In Mark Rosenzweig and Oded Stark, eds., Handbook of Population and Family Economics. Amsterdam: North-Holland.

Bergstrom, Theodore (1996). "Economics in a Family Way." JEL 34.4, December: 1903-1934.

Pollak, Robert A. (1985). "A Transaction Cost Approach to Families and Households." JEL 23.2, June: 581-608.

Introduction: Family Economics and Social Change in Developed Countries

1. Time Allocation and Labor Supply

Becker, G. (1965). "A Theory of the Allocation of Time." EJ 75: 493-517.

Juster, F. T. and F. P. Stafford (1991). "The Allocation of Time: Empirical Findings, Behavioral Models, and Problems of Measurement." JEL 29, June: 471-522.

Biddle, J. and D. Hamermesh (1990). "Sleep and the Allocation of Time." JPE 98.5, October: 922-944.

Corneo, Giacomo (2005). "Work and television." European Journal of Political Economy 21: 99-113.

Blau, Francine and Lawrence Kahn (2007). "Changes in the Labor Supply Behavior of Married Women: 1980-2000." JOLE 25.3: 393-438.

Lundberg, S. (1988). "Labor Supply of Husbands and Wives: A Simultaneous Equations Approach." ReStat., May: 224-235.

* Powell, Lisa M. (2002). "Joint Labor Supply and Childcare Choice Decisions of Married Mothers," JHR 37.1, Winter: 106-128.

* Angrist, Joshua and William Evans (1998). "Children and Their Parents’ Labor Supply: Evidence from Exogenous Variation in Family Size." AER 88.3: 450-477.

* Pencavel, John (2002). "A Cohort Analysis of the Association Between Work and Wages Among Men," JHR 37:2, Spring: 251-274.

* Baker, Michael (2002). "The Retirement Behavior of Married Couples," JHR 37.1, Winter: 1-34.

* Blau, David (1998). "Labor Force Dynamics of Older Married Couples." JOLE 16.3: 595-629.

2. Family-Decisionmaking

Surveys

Behrman, Jere (1997). "Intrahousehold Distribution and the Family," In Mark Rosenzweig and Oded Stark, eds., Handbook of Population and Family Economics. Amsterdam: North-Holland.

Lundberg, Shelly and Robert A. Pollak (1996). "Bargaining and Distribution in Marriage." JEP 10.4, Fall: 139-158.

A. Theory: Bargaining and "Collective" Models

Ermisch, Chapter 2.

McElroy, M. and M.J. Horney (1981). "Nash-Bargained Decisions: Toward a Generalization of the Theory of Demand." IER 22: 333-349.

Lundberg, S. and R. Pollak (1993). "Separate Spheres Bargaining and the Marriage Market." JPE 101: 988-1010.

Lommerud, Kjell Erik and Kai A. Konrad (2000). "The Bargaining Family Revisited," Canadian Journal of Economics, 33.2, May:471-487.

Chiappori, P.-A. (1992). "Collective Labor Supply and Welfare." JPE 100: 437-467.

Blundell, Richard, Pierre-Andre Chiappori, and Costas Meghir (2005). "Collective Labor Supply with Children." JPE 113.6, December: 1277-1306.

B. Evidence

McElroy, M. (1990). "The Empirical Content of Nash-Bargained Household Behavior." JHR 25, Fall: 559-583.

Lundberg, S., R. Pollak and T. Wales (1997). "Do Husbands and Wives Pool Their Resources: Evidence from the U.K Child Benefit." JHR 32.3, Summer: 463-480.

* Browning, M., F. Bourguignon, P.-A. Chiappori and V. Lechene (1994). "Incomes and Outcomes: A Structural Model of Intrahousehold Allocation." JPE 102: 1067-1096.

* Chiappori, Pierre-Andre, Bernard Fortin, and Guy Lacroix (2002). "Marriage Market, Divorce Legislation, and Household Labor Supply," JPE 110.1, February: 37-72.

* Thomas, Duncan, Dante Contreras and Elizabeth Frankenberg (2002). "Distribution of Power Within the Household and Child Health."

* Attanasio, Orazio and Valerie Lechene (2002). "Tests of Income Pooling in Household Decisions," Review of Economic Dynamics 5:4, October: 720-748.

* Kooreman, P. (2000). "The Labeling Effect of a Child Benefit System." AER 90.3, June: 571-583.

Morrison, Andrew, Dhushyanth Raju, and Nistha Sinha (2007). "Gender Equality, Poverty and Economic Growth." Policy Research Working Paper, The World Bank, Gender and Development Group.

3. Household Production

A. Production and Efficiency

Ermisch, Chapter 4

Gronau, R. (1977). "Leisure, Home Production, and Work--The Theory of the Allocation of Time Revisited." JPE 85: 1099-1123.

Pollak, R.A. and M.L. Wachter (1975). "The Relevance of the Household Production Function and Its Implications for the Allocation of Time." JPE 83.2: 255-277.

* Hamermesh, Daniel S. (2005). "Time to Eat: Household Production Under Increasing Income Inequality." Presented at the ATUS Early Results Conference, forthcoming Journal of Agricultural Economics. [On-line]

* Udry, Christopher (1996). "Gender, Agricultural Production, and the Theory of the Household." JPE 104.5, October: 1010-1046.

* Akresh, Richard (2005). "Understanding Pareto Inefficient Intrahousehold Allocations." IZA Discussion Paper No. 1858. [On-line].

* Duflo, Esther and Christopher Udry (2004). "Intrahousehold Resource Allocation in Cote D’Ivoire: Social Norms, Separate Accounts and Consumption Choices." [On-line]

B. Specialization and Gender Wage Differentials

Lundberg, Shelly (2005). "Gender and Household Decision-making." forthcoming in Frontiers in Gender Economics, ed. Francesca Bettio, Routledge. [On-line].

Francois, Patrick (1998). "Gender Discrimination without Gender Difference: Theory and Policy Responses", Journal of Public Economics, 68.1, April: 1-32.

Lazear, E. and S. Rosen (1990). "Male-Female Wage Differentials in Job Ladders." JOLE 8: S106-S123.

Lommerud, Kjell Erik and Kai A. Konrad (2000). "The Bargaining Family Revisited," Canadian Journal of Economics, 33.2, May:471-487.

Vagstad, Steinar (2001). "On Private Incentives to Acquire Household Production Skills," Journal of Population Economics, 14.2, June: 301-312.

* Greenwood, Jeremy, Ananth Seshadri, and Mehmet Yorukoglu (2005). "Engines of Liberation." ReStud 72: 109-133.

* Gronau, R. (1988). "Sex-related Wage Differentials and Women’s Interrupted Labor Careers: The Chicken or the Egg." JOLE 6, July: 277-301.

* Anderson, Deborah, Melissa Binder and Kate Krause (2003). "The Motherhood Wage Penalty Revisited: Experience, Heterogeneity, Work Effort, and Work-Schedule Flexibility," ILRR 56: 2

* Stratton, Leslie S., "The Degree of Intrahousehold Specialization in Housework and How Specialization Varies Across Couple Households," presented at SOLE Annual Meetings, San Francisco, June 2005.

4. Children

A. Fertility

Ermisch, Chapter 6

See Economics 543

B. Altruism

Ermisch, Chapter 3

Bergstrom, T. (1989). "A Fresh Look at the Rotten Kid Theorem--and Other Household Mysteries." JPE 97: 1138-1159.

* Altonji, Joseph G., Fumio Hayashi and Lawrence Kotlikoff (1992). "Is the Extended Family Altruistically Linked? Direct Tests Using Micro Data." AER 82: 1177-1198.

C. Investments in Children

Ermisch, Chapter 5.

Behrman, Jere, Robert A. Pollak and Paul Taubman (1982). "Parental Preferences and Provision for Progeny." JPE 90: 52-73.

Currie, Janet (2001). "Early Childhood Intervention Programs: What Do We Know?" Journal of Economic Perspectives 15.2: 213-238.

* Ermisch, John and Marco Francesconi (2001). "Family Matters: Impacts of Family Background on Educational Attainments." Economica 68: 137-156.

* Currie, Janet and Matthew Neidell (2005). "Air Pollution and Infant Health: What Can We Learn From California's Recent Experience?" QJE 120.3:1003-1030.

* Black, Sandra, Paul Devereux, and Kjell Salvanes (2005). "The More the Merrier? The Effect of Family Size and Birth Order on Children’s Education." QJE 120.2: 669.

* Bjorklund, Anders, Donna K. Ginther, and Marianne Sundstrom (2007). "Does Marriage Matter for Children? Assessing the Causal Impact of Legal Marriage." IZA Discussion Paper 3189.

Heckman, James, J., Jora Stixrud, and Sergio Urzua (2006). "The Effects of Cognitive and Noncognitive Abilities on Labor Market Outcomes and Social Behavior," JOLE 24.3: 411-482.

D. Child Gender

Lundberg, Shelly (2005). "Sons, Daughters, and Parental Behavior," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 21.3: 340-356.

Lundberg, Shelly, with Sabrina Pabilonia and Jennifer Ward-Batts (2007). "Time Allocation of Parents and Investments in Sons and Daughters." [On-line]

Chung Woojin and Monica Das Gupta (2007). "Why is Son Preference Declining in South Korea? The Role of Development and Public Policy, and the Implications for China and India." World Bank, Policy Research Discussion Paper 4373.

Oswald, Andrew and Nattavudh Powdthavee (2006). "Daughters and Left-Wing Voting." IZA Discussion Paper 2103.

5. Marriage

A. Search and Matching

Ermisch, Chapter 7.

Burdett, K. and M.G. Coles (1997). "Marriage and Class." QJE 112: 141-168.

Mortensen, Dale T. (1982). "Property Rights and Efficiency in Mating, Racing and Related Games," AER, 72: 968-979.

Siow, Aloysius (1998). "Differential Fecundity, Markets, and Gender Roles," Journal of Political Economy, 106.2, April: 334-354.

* Gould, Eric D. and M. Daniele Paserman (2003). "Waiting for Mr. Right: Rising Inequality and Declining Marriage Rates," Journal of Urban Economics 53:2, March: 257-281.

*Hitsch, Gunther, Ali Hortacsu, Dan Ariely (2006). "What Makes You Click? Mate Preferences and Matching Outcomes in Online Dating," MIT Sloan Research Paper No. 4603-06. [On-line]

B. Commitment: Intertemporal Models

Lundberg, Shelly and Robert A. Pollak (2003). "Efficiency in Marriage," Review of Economics of the Household, September: 153-167.

Baker, Matthew J., and Joyce P. Jacobsen (2005). "Marriage, Specialization and the Gender Division of Labor," February 2005. [On-line]

Basu, Kaushik (2001). "Gender and Say: A Model of Household Behavior with Endogenously-determined Balance of Power." Forthcoming in EJ. [On-line]

C. Divorce and Child Support

Ermisch, Chapter 8.

Peters, H. Elizabeth (1986). "Marriage and Divorce: Informational Constraints and Private Contracting," American Economic Review, 76.3, June: 437-454.

Weiss, Y. and R. Willis (1985). "Children as Collective Goods and Divorce Settlements." JOLE 3: 268-292.

Rasul, Imran," The Economics of Child Custody," Economica, February 2006, 73: 1-25.

* Wolfers, Justin (2006). "Did Unilateral Divorce Laws Raise Divorce Rates? A Reconciliation and New Results." AER 96.5: 1801-1820.

* Ermisch, John (2006). "New Families, Child Support, and Divorced Fathers’ Contact with their Children." [http://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/pubs/workpaps/pdf/2006-14.pdf].

* Del Boca, Daniela and Chris Flinn (1994). "Expenditure Decisions of Divorced Mothers and Income Composition." JHR 29: 742-761.

D. Nonmarital Childbearing

Willis, Robert J. (1999). "A Theory of Out-of-Wedlock Childbearing." JPE 107: S33-S64.

Out of Wedlock: Causes and Consequences of Nonmarital Fertility. Edited by Lawrence L. Wu and Barbara Wolf. Russell Sage Foundation, 2001.

Akerlof, George A., Janet Yellen, and Michael L. Katz (1996). "An Analysis of Out-of-Wedlock Childbearing in the United States," QJE 111.2, May: 277-318.

6. Work/Family Interactions

Lundberg, Shelly J. (2005). "Men and Islands: Dealing with the Family in Empirical Labor Economics," Labour Economics, 12.4, August: 591-612.

* Antonovics, Kate and Robert Town (2004). "Are All the Good Men Married? Uncovering the Sources of the Marital Wage Premium," AER Papers and Proceedings, May: 317-321.

* Goldin, Claudia and Lawrence F. Katz (2002). "The Power of the Pill: Oral Contraceptives and Women’s Career and Marriage Decisions," JPE 110:4, August: 730-770.

* Miller, Amalia R. (2005). "The Effects of Motherhood Timing on Career Path." [On-line]

* Francesconi, Marco (2002). "A Joint Dynamic Model of Fertility and Work of Married Women," JOLE 20:2, April: 336-380.

* Gould, Eric (2003). "Marriage and Career: The Dynamic Decisions of Young Men." [On-line]

* Moffitt, Robert (2000). "Female Wages, Male Wages, and the Economic Model of Marriage: The Basic Evidence." In The Ties That Bind: Perspectives on Marriage and Cohabitation, eds. L.Waite, C.Bachrach, M.Hindin, E.Thomson, and A.Thornton. Aldine.

Taxes and Transfers

* Grogger, Jeff and Lynn Karoly (2007). "The Effects of Work-Conditioned Transfers on Marriage and Child Well-Being: A Review." NBER Working Paper No. W13485. [On-line]

* Moffitt, Robert (2001). "Welfare Benefits and Female Headship in U.S. Time Series." In Out-of-Wedlock: Causes and Consequences of Nonmarital Fertility, eds. L. Wu and B. Wolfe. Russell Sage Foundation.

* Apps, Patricia and Ray Rees (2007). "The Taxation of Couples." IZA Discussion Paper 2910.

* Figari, Francesco, Herwig Immervoll, Horacio Levy, and Holly Sutherland (2007). "Inequalities Within Couples: Market Incomes and the Role of Taxes and Benefits in Europe." IZA Discussion Paper 3201.

7. Generations

A. Intergenerational Transfers

Ermisch, Chapter 9.

* Baland, Jean-Marie and James A. Robinson (2000). "Is Child Labor Inefficient?" JPE 108.4.

Hurd, Michael D., James P. Smith, and Julie M. Zissimopoulos (2007). "Inter-Vivos Giving Over the Life-cycle." RAND Working Paper WR-524. [On-line]

B. Parent Care

Cigno, Alessandro (2006). "A Constitutional Theory of the Family." Journal of Population Economics, 19(2), June: 259-283.

Pezzin, Liliana E., Robert A. Pollak, and Barbara Schone (2005). "Efficiency in Family Bargaining: Living Arrangements and Caregiving Decisions of Adult Children and Disabled Elderly Parents." [On-line]

Engers, Maxim and Steven Stern (2002). "Long-Term Care and Family Bargaining." IER 43.1, February: 73-114.

* Konrad, Kai A., Harald Künemund, Kjell Erik Lommerud and Julio R. Robledo (2002) "Geography of the Family," AER 92:4, September: 981-998.

8. Macro-Demography

Journal Abbreviations

AER = American Economic Review
EJ = Economic Journal
IER = International Economic Review
JOLE = Journal of Labor Economics
ReStat = The Review of Economics and Statistics
ReStud = Review of Economic Studies
JHR = Journal of Human Resources
JEP = Journal of Economic Perspectives
JEL = Journal of Economic Literature
JPE = Journal of Political Economy
QJE = Quarterly Journal of Economics