Child Tax Research Articles

Some Welfare Theoretic Implications of Endogenous Fertility

This paper explores the implications of endogenous fertility for inter-and intragenerational equity and for intergenerational efficiency. Considering equity requires social welfare criteria. With respect to the issue of intragenerational equity 2 possible criteria in relation to the laissez faire solution are 1) total utility across generations and 2) average or per capita utility. When population size is not fixed the 2 are not the same. When fertility is not endogenous it is possible to consider noncoercive policies for achieving socially optimal population size or rate growth; in general child allowances (or taxes) and subsidies to future consumption are sufficient to achieve the desired outcome. With respect to within-generation income distribution a system of child allowances and tax exemptions designed to alleviate poverty and reduce inequality may actually worsen the situation when both fertility and labor supply are endogenous. Discussing the issue of efficiency for members of the current generation does not require a social welfare function. Neither diminishing returns nor the existence of public goods unless financed by distortionary taxes leads to market failure from this point of view; but the inability of parents to enforce transfers among their offspring or to bargain with the families of the potential spouses of their children may indeed lead to market failure. Finally the paper examines the implications for fertility of the inefficiency in an economy resulting from the absence of a capital market for transferring from present to future consumption. In this case the welfare-improving introduction of a capital market may increase the rate of growth of population when parents value children for themselves as well as a means of providing sustenance in old age.

The Working Poor, Wage Earners and the Failure of Income Security Policies

This book provides a very useful review of the development of income security policies up to the beginning of the 1980s. Ross identifies the nature and extent of low incomes in Canada and is particularly concerned with the wage-earning poor, people who work full-time but who do not bring home an income sufficient to put them above the various poverty levels which obtain in Canada. He deals with existing income support and supplementation programmes and who receives them, acknowledging the difficulty of identifying all benefits and subsidies received by people of all income levels, and recognizing the role played by tax expenditures and benefits conferred without reference to income or wealth level. Ross reports on the record of attempts made to reform the taxation system but does not urge that this should be a high priority at the present time. Instead, Ross advocates a further extension of the tax credit principle already embodied in the child tax credit and in the guaranteed income supplement. He favours making the child tax credit more generous, and reducing the income threshold level and eliminating the dependent child exemption, thus achieving a saving with which to pay the more generous credit. He makes other suggestions for paying the credit on a monthly or quarterly basis rather than annually as at present. Generally, therefore, Ross is making a cautious proposal which he sees as politically feasible in the uncertain economic climate of the early 1980s. Since the book appeared, the economic and unemployment picture has further darkened, with considerably increased demands being made on unemployment insurance and social assistance programmes, their importance as financial safety nets being further exemplified. It is quite clear that the issues of income inequality and inadequacy are not likely to be tackled in the near future. The general question of a guaranteed annual income remains, as always, as much a political as an economic issue. There is scope but no political support for tax reform. As Ross indicates, the use of the demogrant approach remains a feasible way of increasing benefits to families with children and is administratively the simplest and cheapest way to transfer benefits. Such benefits can be taxed back from wealthier families more efficiently than now. Furthermore, payments would remain monthly, and go to mothers. As one who has always favoured demogrants, I believe their merits should be recognized. At the same time I do think the tax system

A Three-Sector Model of Day Care Center Services

Political pressures for increased subsidization of child care and tax and welfare reform have combined with sociodemographic trends to raise important empirical questions about the market for day care services. This paper addresses a number of these questions in the context of a model that treats government, private nonprofit, and for-profit producers separately. Data from North Carolina for 1973 are used in the analysis. It is shown that the three types of centers produce quite different types of care for different markets. Market level demand functions are estimated for the care of each type of center using Tobit analysis. The sectors show different responses to demand determinants such as income and labor force opportunities. Some implications of the estimates for public policy are discussed.

An Evaluation of the Effects of Population Control Programs

An Evaluation of the Effects of Population Control Programs

Economic Analysis of Fertility in Israel: Point and Counterpoint

I view, in this paper, cross-section evidence on fertility in Israel through a very simple hypothesis based on the links among education, the cost of time of women, and the full price of children. The hypothesis is useful in explaining some aspects of behavior, but important facets of the variation in fertility remain unexplained. In recent years there have been several attempts to bring the determination of family size within the scope of the economics of household behavior (see Leibenstein 1957; Becker 1960; Mincer 1963; Easterlin 1968, 1969; Schultz 1969; and others). An economic theory of fertility starts with the postulate that hotuseholds maximize some utility function in which children and other goods appear as arguments subject to resource constraints in which the prices or the costs of production of the arguments appear. The effect of a change in any variable on the number of children depends on the extent to which it lifts the general resource constraint and induces an income effect and the extent to which it changes relative prices and induces a substitution effect. Recent developments in the theory of the household (particularly by Becker [1965] and Lancaster [1966]) provide a unified framework for handling various aspects of the fertility decision. However, in choosing

Education and the Derived Demand for Children

A negative correlation across households between parent's education and completed fertility is one of the most widely and frequently observed relationships in the empirical literature on human fertility behavior. In this paper I utilize the emerging economic theory of household behavior, which is also employed in other papers in this Supplement, to formulate an explanation for this observed negative correlation. In particular, the paper has two objectives: (1) to consider the mechanisms through which a couple's level of education might affect their fertility and (2) to document the effects of education on one of these mechanisms that is an aspect of fertility control-the choice of a contraceptive technique. The following section briefly outlines the theoretical framework, and in Section III I discuss the mechanisms through which education's influence may operate. Throughout, the discussion is restricted to channels of influence from education to fertility; that is, the reverse causation is ruled out by assumption. The specific focus of this discussion should not be interpreted as an assertion of the exclusiveness or the primacy of education's influence on fertility. Section IV considers the fertility-control decision in greater detail. It also reports on my initial empirical work with the 1965 National Fertility Study, a nationwide sociological survey of 5,600 U.S. women undertaken by the Office of Population Research at

Minimum Schooling Legislation, Externalities and a "Child Tax"

Previous articleNext article No AccessMinimum Schooling Legislation, Externalities and a "Child Tax"Barry R. ChiswickBarry R. Chiswick Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Law and Economics Volume 15, Number 2Oct., 1972 Sponsored by The University of Chicago Booth School of Business and The University of Chicago Law School Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/466741 Views: 5Total views on this site Citations: 3Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1972 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Katelyn Stejskal, Naqi Sayed, Camillo Lento Mapping Stakeholder Expectations of a Publicly Funded Post-Secondary Institution: A Balanced Scorecard Perspective, Accounting and the Public Interest 20, no.11 (Mar 2020): 104–137.https://doi.org/10.2308/api-19-002Christiana Stoddard Why did Education Become Publicly Funded? Evidence from the Nineteenth-Century Growth of Public Primary Schooling in the United States, The Journal of Economic History 69, no.11 (Mar 2009): 172–201.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022050709000370Jorge Soares Self-interest and public funding of education, Journal of Public Economics 87, no.3-43-4 (Mar 2003): 703–727.https://doi.org/10.1016/S0047-2727(01)00183-9

THE SUPPORTIVE ROLE OF PEDIATRICS IN AN INPATIENT PSYCHIATRIC UNIT

The experience with practice in a children's psychiatric hospital during the past 4 years has been used as the basis for some observations on the pediatric role. The evolution of this role has been related to direct care, but more and more utilized as a support resource for the staff. The application of pediatric care to the developmental potential in the child makes this use of the role possible. The need for this support derives from the fact that the heavy demands of disturbed children tax the resources of cartakers to a degree often beyond their capacity. As in private practice, the resultant anxiety of the caretaker about her capacity to nurture the child tends to appear as fears about the child's development. These concerns frequently are expressed in forms which are accessible to pediatric intervention. Several illustrations of this in children are given from daily practice. A model of care centered on child development is presented as a basis for understanding the dynamics of pediatric intervention. It is proposed that pediatric counselling is useful in providing emotional support to caretakers. Its effective use may be a factor in lessening the appearance of somatic symptoms in the child, thereby decreasing the need for direct symptomatic care.