Longevity, fertility and economic growth: Do environmental factors matter?
Our study examines the effect of environmental factors on the economic decisions regarding fertility. We incorporate health-damaging pollution into a three period overlapping generations model in which life expectancy, fertility and economic growth are all endogenous. We show that environmental fa...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English English |
| Published: |
Wiley
2017
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://irep.iium.edu.my/56376/ http://irep.iium.edu.my/56376/ http://irep.iium.edu.my/56376/ http://irep.iium.edu.my/56376/1/56376-Longevity%2C%20Fertility%20and%20Economic%20Growth.pdf http://irep.iium.edu.my/56376/2/56376-Longevity%2C%20Fertility%20and%20Economic%20Growth_SCOPUS.pdf |
| Summary: | Our study examines the effect of environmental factors on the economic decisions regarding fertility. We
incorporate health-damaging pollution into a three period overlapping generations model in which life
expectancy, fertility and economic growth are all endogenous. We show that environmental factors can
cause significant changes to the economy’s demographics. In particular, the entrepreneurial choice of less
polluting production processes, induced by a tax on emissions, can at some point in time lead to such
changes as higher longevity and lower fertility rates. Thus, we provide a novel explanation on the
positive relation between fertility rates and pollution. According to this, the causality on this relation
may also work from the latter to the former. Furthermore, our model can account for the empirically
observed N-shaped correlation between pollution and income per capita. |
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