EC3346 Family Economics

Aims

EC3346 Family Economics is suitable for students with knowledge of microeconomics and basic econometric methods. Its aim is to familiarize students with a broad range of the methods and models applied by economists in the analysis of family issues. These issues include marriage and cohabitation, intra-household allocations, fertility, children development, and divorce. These phenomena will be modeled as the outcomes of rational-choice processes, with hypotheses concerning these choices evaluated in the context of relevant empirical evidence. Special attention will be focused on public policies influencing 'family' decisions. A broader goal is that students who take the course will, by working extensively with theoretical models, acquire analytical skills that are transferable to other kinds of intellectual problems.

Week 1: Empirical stylized facts

By the end of this week you should be aware of the key stylized facts that the field of Family Economics seeks to explain.

Week 2: Economic gains

By the end of these weeks you should be familiar with the theories used by economics to explain partnership formation, including specialization, economies of scale, coordinated investments, and risk-sharing.

Week 3: Decision making within the family

By the end of these weeks you should be aware of the main theories used by economics to model intra-household interactions, including unitary models, bargaining models, and “collective models”. You should also be aware of their predictions and their relative empirical support.

Week 4-5: Matching and marriage outcomes

By the end of this week you should be aware of how economists model the selection into partnerships, using concepts such as stable matching and search frictions. You should also be aware of the empirical approaches to testing these theories.

Week 7-8: Fertility

By the end of these weeks you should be familiar with the theories how fertility has been incorporated into economic theory, including the well-known quantity-quality model. We will then look at a set of empirical aspects of fertility, including the potential effectiveness of family planning policy, financial incentives, evidence on the quantity-quality model, and the effect of recessions.

Week 9: Parenting and Investments

By the end of this week you should be familiar with how recent research has used the human capital / skills framework for modelling the effect of parenting and parental investments for children's development and skill formation.

Week 10: Domestic Violence

By the end of this week you be familiar with ways in which intimate partner violence can be theoretically modelled, and with some of the most well-known empirical economic studies of intimate partner violence.

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