Beyond the Quantity-Quality tradeoff: Population control policy and human capital investment

doi:10.1016/j.jdeveco.2018.04.007

CORC > 上海财经大学 > 上海财经大学

	Beyond the Quantity-Quality tradeoff: Population control policy and human capital investment
	Wang, Xuebo 1; Zhang, Junsen 2
刊名	JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS
	2018-11
卷号	135 页码:222-234
关键词	Population control policy Human capital investment One-child policy Quantity-quality tradeoff effect Compositional effect
ISSN号	0304-3878
DOI	10.1016/j.jdeveco.2018.04.007
英文摘要	The quantity-quality tradeoff theory implies that a reduction in fertility would induce more human capital investment per child, and it is widely believed that population control policy could promote human capital levels in developing countries. China's one-child policy (OCP) has significantly reduced the fertility in the country, and popular belief holds that this policy has contributed to the enhancement in China's human capital since 1979. However, the quantity-quality tradeoff dose not present the complete truth-another crucial factor relates to which segment of the population is reduced, a critical issue that has been ignored in the literature. China's OCP is significantly more strictly implemented in urban areas than in rural areas, where human capital investment in children is significantly lower. This two-tier OCP could have significantly increased the rural-urban fertility ratio and brought about important consequences. We first emphasize the importance of such a population compositional effect, which may offset the potentially positive quantity-quality tradeoff effect on human capital. We present a simple analytic framework and quantify the relative sizes of the quantity-quality tradeoff and compositional effects. We find that the former is dominated by the latter, and that the OCP has reduced the average human capital level of China's next generation by approximately 1-2%. This novel evidence indicates that the conventional wisdom on population control may be incomplete and that its policy implications could be misleading.
WOS研究方向	Business & Economics
语种	英语
出版者	ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV
WOS记录号	WOS:000449892100013
内容类型	期刊论文
源URL	[http://10.2.47.112/handle/2XS4QKH4/475]
专题	上海财经大学
通讯作者	Zhang, Junsen
作者单位	1.Shanghai Univ Finance & Econ, Sch Econ, Shanghai, Peoples R China; 2.Chinese Univ Hong Kong, Dept Econ, Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Peoples R China
推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714	Wang, Xuebo,Zhang, Junsen. Beyond the Quantity-Quality tradeoff: Population control policy and human capital investment[J]. JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS,2018,135:222-234.
APA	Wang, Xuebo,&Zhang, Junsen.(2018).Beyond the Quantity-Quality tradeoff: Population control policy and human capital investment.JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS,135,222-234.
MLA	Wang, Xuebo,et al."Beyond the Quantity-Quality tradeoff: Population control policy and human capital investment".JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS 135(2018):222-234.