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Foreword for the symposium in honour of Gary Becker
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[m3Gsc;December 16, 2016;6:58]
Journal of Comparative Economics 0 0 0 (2016) 1–2
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Comparative Economics journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jce
Foreword
Foreword for the special issue in honor of Gary Becker
Gary Becker is one of the greatest economists. Citation counts accumulated in Google Scholar indicates that Becker’s work has been cited around two hundred thousand times as of September 2016. Perhaps the most important contribution of Gary Becker is the establishment of a new field of ‘Family Economics’ that provides an economic analysis of many traditionally sociological topics, including child-bearing, marriage, divorce, relationships within households, the shaping of preferences, and the caring of children. His work on the family has also had enormous impacts in many fields in economics. For example, the notion of household production is now commonly used in labor economics and macroeconomics. After the publication of two pioneering works on fertility and time use in the 1960s (Becker, 1960, 1965), Becker and his coauthors continued to explore the frontiers of family economics. Milestone contributions include the theory of marriage (Becker, 1973, 1974a), the Quantity–Quality (Q–Q) trade-off of children (Becker and Lewis, 1973), the Rotten Kids Theorem (Becker, 1974b), child endowment and intra-household resource allocation (Becker and Tomes, 1976), intergenerational transmission (Becker and Tomes, 1979, 1986), household division of labor (Becker, 1985; Becker and Murphy, 1992), and preference formation (Becker et al., 2016). Becker’s works in Family Economics are partly summarized by his magnum opus: A Treatise on the Family (1981). The Treatise alone has been cited more than sixteen thousand times. As Becker wrote in his Nobel Lecture, “Writing A Treatise on the Family (1981) is the most difficult sustained intellectual effort I have undertaken. … It took about 2 years after finishing the Treatise to regain my intellectual zest (Becker, 1993, p. 395).” We believe that the best way to pay tribute to Becker and his work on the family is to follow up his research with a collection of works in a special issue of the Journal of Comparative Economics that represent the most recent advances in the field of family economics and that also incorporate Becker’s belief that economic analysis is relevant across many cultures and economic systems. Papers for the special issue were solicited in an open call, and all went through a standard refereeing process. Two papers address Becker’s work on the allocation of resources to children. A basic insight from Becker’s work with Gregg Lewis is that if parents want to equalize “quality” across all of their children, the marginal cost of increasing average quality per child is increasing in the number of children (Becker and Lewis, 1973). Thus, many articles have been published seeking to test if an increase in the number of children causally decreases measures of child quality, such as schooling attainment, that there is a trade-off between the quality of children and family size – the Q–Q trade-off. Qin et al. (2016) exploit the launch of China’s One-child Policy (OCP) in 1979 to test the Q–Q trade-off using a Regression Discontinuity Design. They find that the OCP significantly increased the presence of one-child families, and raised children’s completed education levels. Li and Zhang (2016) exploit the differential enforcement of China’s OCP to identify how changes in the number of children causally affect child quality. They also find a negative impact of family size on child quality. The findings of both studies are consistent with the Q–Q trade-off highlighted by Becker and Lewis. Guo et al. (2016) clarify the identification issues when researchers attempt to isolate the effects of birth order and the total number of children on measures of the human capital of individual children. Such studies have claimed that their results are inconsistent with the Q–Q trade-off. The authors show that such estimates do not identify the effect of the number of children on average child quality, which is the focus of the Becker and Lewis model, and thus do not challenge the Q–Q trade-off of children. Ye and Yi (2016) extend the theory of intra-household resource allocation. They show that when credit constraints are not binding, parents always adopt a reinforcing strategy in child investment – allocating more resources to more able children – even if they value equality among child outcomes. When credit constraints are binding, however, parents face a trade-off between efficiency and equality in child investment. Thus, parents may adopt a compensating strategy if their
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jce.2016.11.007 0147-5967/© 2016 Association for Comparative Economic Studies. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Foreword / Journal of Comparative Economics 000 (2016) 1–2
concern for equality dominates. Ye and Yi also discuss how to empirically separate the efficiency and equality parameters that characterize parental preferences. Wang and Yu (2016) build an integrated model of parent-child interactions, child-to-child interactions, and the intergenerational transmission of human capital. They are among the first to build a complete model that simultaneously considers inter-generational and intra-generational interactions. Huang et al. (2016) build on Becker’s most recent work on preference formation (Becker et al., 2016), by bringing it back to Becker’s early work on marriage matching (Becker, 1973). They show that parents have incentives to meddle with children’s marriage matching to obtain more old-age support from children. But the increase of old-age support is at the expense of children’s marriage harmony. All six papers are important contributions to Family Economics that appropriately honor Gary Becker as the pioneer of Family Economics. References Becker, G.S., 1960. An economic analysis of fertility. Demographic and Economic Change in Developed Countries, I. Columbia University Press, pp. 209–240. Becker, G.S., 1965. A theory of the allocation of time. Econ. J. 75 (299), 493–517. Becker, G.S., 1973. A theory of marriage: part I. J. Polit. Econ. 81 (4), 813–846. Becker, G.S., 1974a. A theory of marriage: part II. J. Polit. Econ. 82 (2), S11–S26. Becker, G.S., 1974b. A theory of social interactions. J. Polit. Econ. 82 (6), 1063–1093. Becker, G.S., 1985. Human capital, effort, and the sexual division of labor. J. Labor Econ. 3 (1), S33–S58. Becker, G.S., 1993. Nobel lecture: the economic way of looking at behavior. J. Polit. Econ. 101 (3), 385–409. Becker, G.S., Lewis, H.G., 1973. On the interaction between the quantity and quality of children. J. Polit. Econ. 81 (2), S279–S288. Becker, G.S., Murphy, K.M., 1992. The division of labor, coordination costs, and knowledge. Q. J. Econ. 107 (4), 1137–1160. http://doi.org/10.2307/2118383. Becker, G.S., Murphy, K.M., Spenkuch, J.L., 2016. The manipulation of children’ s preferences, old age support, and investment in children’ s human capital. J. Labor Econ. 34 (2), S3–S30. Becker, G.S., Tomes, N., 1976. Child Endowments and the quantity and quality of children. J. Polit. Economy 84 (S4), S143–S162. http://doi.org/10.1086/ 260536. Becker, G.S., Tomes, N., 1979. An Equilibrium theory of the distribution of income and intergenerational mobility. J. Polit. Econ. 87 (6), 1153–1189. Becker, G.S., Tomes, N., 1986. Human capital and the rise and fall of families. J. Labor Econ. 4 (3), S1–S39. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ pubmed/12146356 . Guo, R., Yi, J., Zhang, J., 2016. Family size, birth order, and tests of the quantity-quality model. J. Comp. Econ (This Issue). Huang, F., Xu, L.C., Jin, G.Z., 2016. Love, Money, and parental goods: does parental matchmaking matter. J. Comp. Econ (This Issue). Li, B., Zhang, H., 2016. Does Population control lead to better child quality? evidence from china’s one-child policy enforcement. J. Comp. Econ. (This Issue). Qin, X., Zhuang, C.C., Yang, R., 2016. Does the one-child policy improve children’s human capital in urban china? a regression discontinuity design. J. Comp. Econ. (This Issue). Wang, Q., Yu, X., 2016. Family linkages, social interactions, and investment in human capital: a theoretical analysis. J. Comp. Econ (This Issue). Ye, M., Yi, J., 2016. Parental preferences, production technologies, and provision for progeny. J. Comp. Econ. (This Issue).
Mark Rosenzweig∗ Yale University, United States Junsen Zhang Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong ∗ Corresponding
author.
ARTICLE IN PRESS
[m3Gsc;December 16, 2016;6:58]
Journal of Comparative Economics 0 0 0 (2016) 1–2
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Comparative Economics journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jce
Foreword
Foreword for the special issue in honor of Gary Becker
Gary Becker is one of the greatest economists. Citation counts accumulated in Google Scholar indicates that Becker’s work has been cited around two hundred thousand times as of September 2016. Perhaps the most important contribution of Gary Becker is the establishment of a new field of ‘Family Economics’ that provides an economic analysis of many traditionally sociological topics, including child-bearing, marriage, divorce, relationships within households, the shaping of preferences, and the caring of children. His work on the family has also had enormous impacts in many fields in economics. For example, the notion of household production is now commonly used in labor economics and macroeconomics. After the publication of two pioneering works on fertility and time use in the 1960s (Becker, 1960, 1965), Becker and his coauthors continued to explore the frontiers of family economics. Milestone contributions include the theory of marriage (Becker, 1973, 1974a), the Quantity–Quality (Q–Q) trade-off of children (Becker and Lewis, 1973), the Rotten Kids Theorem (Becker, 1974b), child endowment and intra-household resource allocation (Becker and Tomes, 1976), intergenerational transmission (Becker and Tomes, 1979, 1986), household division of labor (Becker, 1985; Becker and Murphy, 1992), and preference formation (Becker et al., 2016). Becker’s works in Family Economics are partly summarized by his magnum opus: A Treatise on the Family (1981). The Treatise alone has been cited more than sixteen thousand times. As Becker wrote in his Nobel Lecture, “Writing A Treatise on the Family (1981) is the most difficult sustained intellectual effort I have undertaken. … It took about 2 years after finishing the Treatise to regain my intellectual zest (Becker, 1993, p. 395).” We believe that the best way to pay tribute to Becker and his work on the family is to follow up his research with a collection of works in a special issue of the Journal of Comparative Economics that represent the most recent advances in the field of family economics and that also incorporate Becker’s belief that economic analysis is relevant across many cultures and economic systems. Papers for the special issue were solicited in an open call, and all went through a standard refereeing process. Two papers address Becker’s work on the allocation of resources to children. A basic insight from Becker’s work with Gregg Lewis is that if parents want to equalize “quality” across all of their children, the marginal cost of increasing average quality per child is increasing in the number of children (Becker and Lewis, 1973). Thus, many articles have been published seeking to test if an increase in the number of children causally decreases measures of child quality, such as schooling attainment, that there is a trade-off between the quality of children and family size – the Q–Q trade-off. Qin et al. (2016) exploit the launch of China’s One-child Policy (OCP) in 1979 to test the Q–Q trade-off using a Regression Discontinuity Design. They find that the OCP significantly increased the presence of one-child families, and raised children’s completed education levels. Li and Zhang (2016) exploit the differential enforcement of China’s OCP to identify how changes in the number of children causally affect child quality. They also find a negative impact of family size on child quality. The findings of both studies are consistent with the Q–Q trade-off highlighted by Becker and Lewis. Guo et al. (2016) clarify the identification issues when researchers attempt to isolate the effects of birth order and the total number of children on measures of the human capital of individual children. Such studies have claimed that their results are inconsistent with the Q–Q trade-off. The authors show that such estimates do not identify the effect of the number of children on average child quality, which is the focus of the Becker and Lewis model, and thus do not challenge the Q–Q trade-off of children. Ye and Yi (2016) extend the theory of intra-household resource allocation. They show that when credit constraints are not binding, parents always adopt a reinforcing strategy in child investment – allocating more resources to more able children – even if they value equality among child outcomes. When credit constraints are binding, however, parents face a trade-off between efficiency and equality in child investment. Thus, parents may adopt a compensating strategy if their
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jce.2016.11.007 0147-5967/© 2016 Association for Comparative Economic Studies. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
JID: YJCEC 2
ARTICLE IN PRESS
[m3Gsc;December 16, 2016;6:58]
Foreword / Journal of Comparative Economics 000 (2016) 1–2
concern for equality dominates. Ye and Yi also discuss how to empirically separate the efficiency and equality parameters that characterize parental preferences. Wang and Yu (2016) build an integrated model of parent-child interactions, child-to-child interactions, and the intergenerational transmission of human capital. They are among the first to build a complete model that simultaneously considers inter-generational and intra-generational interactions. Huang et al. (2016) build on Becker’s most recent work on preference formation (Becker et al., 2016), by bringing it back to Becker’s early work on marriage matching (Becker, 1973). They show that parents have incentives to meddle with children’s marriage matching to obtain more old-age support from children. But the increase of old-age support is at the expense of children’s marriage harmony. All six papers are important contributions to Family Economics that appropriately honor Gary Becker as the pioneer of Family Economics. References Becker, G.S., 1960. An economic analysis of fertility. Demographic and Economic Change in Developed Countries, I. Columbia University Press, pp. 209–240. Becker, G.S., 1965. A theory of the allocation of time. Econ. J. 75 (299), 493–517. Becker, G.S., 1973. A theory of marriage: part I. J. Polit. Econ. 81 (4), 813–846. Becker, G.S., 1974a. A theory of marriage: part II. J. Polit. Econ. 82 (2), S11–S26. Becker, G.S., 1974b. A theory of social interactions. J. Polit. Econ. 82 (6), 1063–1093. Becker, G.S., 1985. Human capital, effort, and the sexual division of labor. J. Labor Econ. 3 (1), S33–S58. Becker, G.S., 1993. Nobel lecture: the economic way of looking at behavior. J. Polit. Econ. 101 (3), 385–409. Becker, G.S., Lewis, H.G., 1973. On the interaction between the quantity and quality of children. J. Polit. Econ. 81 (2), S279–S288. Becker, G.S., Murphy, K.M., 1992. The division of labor, coordination costs, and knowledge. Q. J. Econ. 107 (4), 1137–1160. http://doi.org/10.2307/2118383. Becker, G.S., Murphy, K.M., Spenkuch, J.L., 2016. The manipulation of children’ s preferences, old age support, and investment in children’ s human capital. J. Labor Econ. 34 (2), S3–S30. Becker, G.S., Tomes, N., 1976. Child Endowments and the quantity and quality of children. J. Polit. Economy 84 (S4), S143–S162. http://doi.org/10.1086/ 260536. Becker, G.S., Tomes, N., 1979. An Equilibrium theory of the distribution of income and intergenerational mobility. J. Polit. Econ. 87 (6), 1153–1189. Becker, G.S., Tomes, N., 1986. Human capital and the rise and fall of families. J. Labor Econ. 4 (3), S1–S39. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ pubmed/12146356 . Guo, R., Yi, J., Zhang, J., 2016. Family size, birth order, and tests of the quantity-quality model. J. Comp. Econ (This Issue). Huang, F., Xu, L.C., Jin, G.Z., 2016. Love, Money, and parental goods: does parental matchmaking matter. J. Comp. Econ (This Issue). Li, B., Zhang, H., 2016. Does Population control lead to better child quality? evidence from china’s one-child policy enforcement. J. Comp. Econ. (This Issue). Qin, X., Zhuang, C.C., Yang, R., 2016. Does the one-child policy improve children’s human capital in urban china? a regression discontinuity design. J. Comp. Econ. (This Issue). Wang, Q., Yu, X., 2016. Family linkages, social interactions, and investment in human capital: a theoretical analysis. J. Comp. Econ (This Issue). Ye, M., Yi, J., 2016. Parental preferences, production technologies, and provision for progeny. J. Comp. Econ. (This Issue).
Mark Rosenzweig∗ Yale University, United States Junsen Zhang Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong ∗ Corresponding
author.