文档介绍：Public Choice (2013) 155:493–505
DOI -011-9879-7
The political economy of fertility
Thorsten Janus
Received: 20 December 2010 / Accepted: 24 August 2011 / Published online: 15 September 2011
© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011
Abstract This paper studies the political economy of fertility. Specifically, I argue that
fertility may be a strategic choice for ethnic groups engaged in redistributive conflict. I first
present a simple conflict model where high fertility is optimal for each ethnic group if and
only if the economy’s ethnic diversity is high, institutions are weak, or both. I then test the
model in a cross-national dataset. Consistent with the theory, I find that economies where the
product of ethnic diversity and a measure of institutional weakness is high have increased
fertility rates. I conclude that fertility may depend on political factors.
Keywords Population · Fertility · Ethnic diversity · Social conflict · Social norms
JEL Classification D72 · D74 · J13 · O12
1 Introduction
This paper studies the political economy of fertility. I particularly ask whether fertility may
be a strategic choice for ethnic groups engaged in redistributive There are at least
two reasons why the answer could be affirmative. First, individuals in diverse societies tend
to vote for co-ethnic political candidates, who then reward them with transfers, jobs, or local
public goods (Young 1976; Bates 1981). Fertility should therefore increase an ethnic group’s
voting power and gains from political office (Kimenyi et al. 1988). Second, if ethnic groups
allocate society’s resources via conflict or bargaining in the shadow of conflict (Horowitz
2000; Collier and Hoeffler 2004), then fertility might increase bat Impor-
1Another incentive for population growth may be that larger groups can more easily impose their language
or culture on the rest of society (Horowitz 2000).
2Bates (1981), Easterly and Levine (1997), Alesina et al