Handbook of the Economics of the Family

1st Edition - March 23, 2023
Editors: Shelly Lundberg, Alessandra Voena
Language: English
Hardback ISBN:
9 7 8 - 0 - 3 2 3 - 8 9 9 6 5 - 9
eBook ISBN:
9 7 8 - 0 - 3 2 3 - 8 9 9 6 6 - 6

Handbook of the Economics of the Family, Volume One includes comprehensive surveys of the current state of the economics literaure in the field, prepared by leading schola… Read more

Purchase options

ROBOTICS & AUTOMATION

Empowering Progress

Up to 25% off Essentials Robotics and Automation titles

Explore now

Image with Robotics & Automation book covers

Institutional subscription on ScienceDirect

Request a sales quote

Handbook of the Economics of the Family, Volume One includes comprehensive surveys of the current state of the economics literaure in the field, prepared by leading scholars, with a particular empahsis on the most recent developments in each area. Chapters cover Culture and the family; Mating markets; Household decisions and intra-household distributions; The economics of fertility: a new era; Families, labor markets, and policy; Family background, neighborhoods, and intergenerational mobility; The great transition: Kuznets facts for family-economists; An institutional perspective on the economics of the family.

Cover image
Title page
Table of Contents
Copyright
Contributors
Introduction to the series
Preface
Chapter 1: Culture and the family
Abstract
1. Introduction
2. Family institutions
3. The family & the transmission of culture
4. How does culture affect family decision-making?
5. The family and cultural change
6. Conclusion & directions for future research
References
Chapter 2: Mating markets
Abstract
Introduction
1. Matching markets: theory
2. Empirical methods
3. Some empirical applications
4. Conclusion
References
Chapter 3: Household decisions and intra-household distributions
Abstract
Introduction
1. Theoretical models of household decision-making
2. Empirical testing and estimation
3. Where do we stand?
Conclusion
References
Chapter 4: The economics of fertility: a new era
Abstract
1. Introduction
2. Old facts, old models
3. The changing relationships between income, labor force participation, education, and fertility
4. Why have the old relationships weakened or disappeared?
5. A new big idea: the ease of combining career and family as a determinant of fertility
6. More new directions in modeling fertility choice
7. Recent developments in the normative analysis of fertility
8. The road ahead for the economics of fertility
9. Conclusion
Appendix.
References
Chapter 5: Families, labor markets, and policy
Abstract
1. Introduction
2. Trends
3. Conceptual framework
4. Evidence on policy impacts
5. The political economy of family policies
6. Cross-country variation in family policies
7. Conclusions
Appendix A. Data appendix
Appendix B. Regression estimates
Appendix C. Policy data
Appendix D. Cross-country variation in family policies
References
Chapter 6: Family background, neighborhoods, and intergenerational mobility
Abstract
1. Introduction
2. Family background and earnings: theoretical considerations
3. Measurement of intergenerational mobility
4. The importance of family environment and genetics
5. Effects of family environment
6. Neighborhoods and intergenerational mobility
7. Conclusion
References
Chapter 7: The great transition: Kuznets facts for family-economists
Abstract
1. Beginning
2. Kuznets facts for family-economists
3. Setup
4. Decision problems
5. Calibrating the model to US data
6. Propelling the great transition
7. Ending
Appendix A. Data appendix
References
Chapter 8: An institutional perspective on the economics of the family
Abstract
1. Introduction
2. Historical motivation
3. Patterns in the data
4. Consequences of family institutions
5. Origins of family institutions
6. Comparison with economic institutions
7. Conclusions
References
Index

Shelly Lundberg

Shelly Lundberg is Distinguished Professor of Economics and the Leonard Broom Professor of Demography at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is a Fellow and past President of the Society of Labor Economists, a past President of the European Society of Population Economics and a Research Fellow at IZA. In 2020, Lundberg was elected a Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association. She served as Chair of the AEA’s Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession from 2016 to 2018 and served as AEA Vice-President in 2021. Lundberg’s research is focused in labor economics, demography economics, and the economics of the family, including issues such as discrimination, inequality, family decision-making and the intra-household allocation of resources. Projects in recent years include studies of decision-making by children, the effects of child gender on parental behavior, the location decisions of married couples, the impact of government-provided care for the elderly on the labor supply of adult children, the economic returns to psychosocial traits, and the gender gap in educational attainment. Recently, she has written about the barriers to increasing women’s participation in the economics profession and on gender economics more broadly. Lundberg received her Bachelor’s degree at the University of British Columbia and her Ph.D in Economics from Northwestern University in 1981.

Affiliations and expertise

University of California, CA, USA

Alessandra Voena

Alessandra Voena is a Professor of Economics at Stanford University and an Editor of the Journal of Labor Economics. She a Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, and a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. She has previously taught at the University of Chicago, and has been a Visiting Assistant Professor at Yale University and a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School. Voena’s work focuses primarily on the economics of the family in developed and developing countries. In particular, her research studies how the marriage market and intra-household decision making shape human capital investments and economic outcomes in the United States, in Sub-Saharan Africa, and in India. Voena holds a Ph.D. and an M.A. in Economics from Stanford University, and an undergraduate degree in Economics from the Università degli Studi di Torino in Italy.

Affiliations and expertise

Department of Economics, Stanford University, Palo Alto, United States

Life Sciences

Physical Sciences & Engineering

Social Sciences & Humanities

Health