TY  - JOUR
AU  - Mocan,Naci H.
TI  - Business Cycles and Fertility Dynamics in the U.S.: A Vector-Autoregressive Model
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 3177
PY  - 1991
Y2  - March 1991
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w3177
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w3177.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Naci H. Mocan
Department of Economics
Louisiana State University
2119 Patrick F. Taylor Hall
Baton Rouge, LA 70803-6306
Tel: 225/578-4570
E-Mail: mocan@lsu.edu
AB  - Using recent developments in time-series econometrics, this paper investigates the behavior of fertility over the business cycle. The sex-specific unemployment rates, the divorce rate and the fertility rate are shown to be governed by stochastic trends. Furthermore, fertility is determined to be co-integrated with the divorce and unemployment rates. In the bivariate vector-autoregressions between fertility and unemployment, an increase in the female or male unemployment rates generate a decrease in fertility, which confirms the findings of previous time-series research concerning the procyclical behavior of fertility. However, when the models include the divorce rate and the proportion of young marriages as additional regressors, shocks to the unemployment rates bring about an increase in fertility, implying the countercyclicality of fertility.
ER  -