Family (economics)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The family, although recognized as fundamental from Adam Smith on, received little systematic treatment in economics before the 1950s. A significant exception was Thomas Malthus's model of population growth. The work of Gary Becker and others initiated ftuitful research with the application and extension of microeconomic theory and empirical methods. Standard aspects include:

• fertility and the demand for children
• interrelation of 'quantity' and 'quality' of children through investment of time and other resources of parents
• altruism in the family (including the rotten kid theorem)
• sexual division of labor through the household production function and outside the household.
• mate selection and marriage
• divorce, marriage, and imperfect information
• family background and opportunities of children.
• intergenerational mobility and inequality (including the bequest motive)
• human capital, social security, and the rise and fall of families

[edit] References

• Gary S. Becker (1981, Enlarged ed., 1991). A Treatise on the Family. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-90698-5}} (publisher's description & table of contents)
• _____ (1987). "family," The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, v. 2, pp. 281-86.
• Yoram Ben-Porath (1982). "Economics and the Family-Match or Mismatch? a Review of Becker's A Treatise on the Family," Journal of Economic Literature, 20(1) (March), pp. 52-64. (JUSTOR)
• Richard A. Berk (1987). "household production," The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, v. 2, pp. 673-75
• Mark R. Rosenzweig and Oded Stark, ed. (1997). Handbook of Population and Family Economics, v. 1A & 1B. Elsevier.com.(publisher's description, contents, & review comments), 1343 pp.
• Theodore W. Schultz, ed. (1974). Economics of the Family: Marriage, Children, and Human Capital, Chicago, University of Chicago Press