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Title: Rational Expectations and Ex Post Rationalizations: The Value of Subjective Measures of Excess Children
Resulting in 1 citation.
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Rosenzweig, Mark R. Wolpin, Kenneth I. |
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Rational Expectations and Ex Post Rationalizations: The Value of Subjective Measures of Excess Children Working Paper, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, 1988 Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79 Publisher: Author Keyword(s): Behavior; Birthweight; Children; Fertility; Pre-natal Care/Exposure; Pre/post Natal Behavior; Pre/post Natal Health Care; Wantedness Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. This paper assesses the usefulness of an attitudinal fertility variable describing the "wantedness" of children. The authors formulate a dynamic model of fertility behavior which incorporates uncertainty about child traits in order to assess the informational content of retrospectively-ascertained measures of wantedness. Utilizing data from the NLSY, the authors test for bias in wantedness information that may arise from both parents' responsiveness to the observed characteristics of their children as well as from biases in their expectations about their children's endowed traits. Results indicate that reports of wantedness obtained after children are born are significantly influenced by children's traits (ex post rationalization) and that mothers exhibit overly optimistic expectations regarding their children's endowed qualities. As a result, the retrospective measure of wantedness commonly collected and used to measure the principal consequence of imperfect fertility control overstates substantially the actual incidence of unwanted births. The authors conclude that the incidence of unwantedness based on information obtained from cross-sectional fertility surveys neither measures appropriately the family size or resource-allocation consequences of imperfect or costly contraceptive technology nor is a reliable indicator of child neglect. |
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Bibliography Citation
Rosenzweig, Mark R. and Kenneth I. Wolpin. "Rational Expectations and Ex Post Rationalizations: The Value of Subjective Measures of Excess Children." Working Paper, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, 1988. |