Re: fertility and government
I'm curious if anyone is aware of an instance, where a conscious, explicit choice was made in government policy to choose higher total GDP over higher per capita GDP, or vice versa. It seems to me that most any policy restricting immigration is choosing to maximize per capita GDP over total GDP and has that more or less in mind, which also goes along the lines of the voting bodies preference of higher per capita GDP.
Re: fertility and government
On 7/18/2003, Wei Dai wrote: I think maybe the answer is that a dictator has an economic incentive to maximize total GDP, while a voter has an incentive to maximize per capita GDP instead. ... If the new capitas were coming from immigration this makes sense, but if they are coming from children, this doesn't make sense because people care about the existence and GDP of their children. Also, my reading of that paper is that the total GDP effect was not statistically significant, while the fertility effect was significant. Robin Hanson [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://hanson.gmu.edu Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030- 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323
Re: fertility and government
On Tue, Jul 15, 2003 at 07:04:27PM -0400, Robert A. Book wrote: > [...] The point > I was tryign to make is that it's possible for a dictatorship to > depress child-rearing opportunities less than other opportunities, > thus making child-rearing relatively more attractive. Why do you think dictatorships tend to depress people's non-child-rearing opportunities more than their child-rearing opportunities? Note that this is a matter of choice for the government. Certainly dictators can choose to depress people's child-rearing opportunities very heavily if they want to. Just look at China's one-child policy. The article said average GDP growth in dictatorships is faster than in democracies because of higher fertility, meaning this "depression of opportunities" is actually causing the total wealth of the country (including human capital) to grow faster, which doesn't seem very plausible. I think maybe the answer is that a dictator has an economic incentive to maximize total GDP, while a voter has an incentive to maximize per capita GDP instead. The dictator owns all government revenue, which is directly related to total GDP. The voter has only a proportional claim to government revenue. The more people there are, the greater the GDP and government revenue, but also the more people he has to share it with, so he only cares about per capita GDP. Perhaps the difference in fertility reflect perfectly rational policy decisions made by those in control of governments. I'm curious if anyone is aware of an instance, where a conscious, explicit choice was made in government policy to choose higher total GDP over higher per capita GDP, or vice versa.
Re: fertility and government
I believe Robert (and others) is (are) onto something. If we look at having children as an (potential) old-age investment, then it is - in most dictaturships today - a very safe one (compaired to having land [zimbabwe] or money in the bank [argentina], etc etc.). In most democracies (capitalist countries) there are several other invcenstments with much higher pay-offs and much lower risks - in fact, one may argue that children have become a consumer good, rather than an investment. That still leaves the low fertility in the soviet countries, but possibly this could be explained by the fact that your old age was actually "taken care of"... - Jacob Braestrup, Special Adviser > > In a message dated 7/14/03 9:52:40 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > > > > >A few people seem to have skipped over the first sentence of my post. > > > > > >The article said that fertility rate is higher in dictatorships than in > > >democracies at *all income levels*. Meaning if you take any income level > > >and compare dictatorships and democracies in the same level, the > > >dictatorships will tend to have a higher fertility rate. > > > > Yes, this is why I've suggested the higher fertility rate may arise from > > attempts to escape the oppression through the joys of sex. > > > Right, and even if you assume access to birth control and the like, > there may still be non-sexual "joys of child-rearing" that can accruse > even under a dictatorship. > > More formally: In a dictatorship, the returns to non-child-rearing > activities are reduced more than the returns to child-rearing, so > child-rearing becomes relatively more attractive, so people do more of > it. > > In other words, yes of course I'd rather raise my kids in a democracy > than a dictatorship, just as I'd rather start a business (for example) > in a democracy than a dictatorship. But in a dictatorship, while my > child-rearing opportunities suffer, my business opportunities suffer > even more. > > I can't think of any reason why this couldn't be true at every level. > > Still, I agree with Marko that we can't be sure that the underlying > facts are true until we see how they treated the now-ex-communist > countries of Eastern Europe/USSR. I was under the impression that > fertility in the USSR and the Warsaw pact countries was very low, and > I think it's still very low in Russia. I think the Russian population > is decreasing. > > > --Robert Book > > > -- NeoMail - Webmail
Re: fertility and government
> > But in a dictatorship, while my > > child-rearing opportunities suffer, my business opportunities suffer > > even more. > > But what if you live under a capitalist dicatator, like Chile's General > Pinochet or South Korea's General Park [is this name right?]? If my understanding is correct, in a lot of those places you have to "know someone" to take advantage of the capitalism. There are probably not enough such people to change the data, in any (reasonable) income bracket. Even if that's not the case, "business opportunities" is just an example. Substitute "political opportunities" if you like. The point I was tryign to make is that it's possible for a dictatorship to depress child-rearing opportunities less than other opportunities, thus making child-rearing relatively more attractive. > > I was under the impression that > > fertility in the USSR and the Warsaw pact countries was very low, and > > I think it's still very low in Russia. > > Yes. In fact, it's even lower since Russia and other Warsaw bloc countries > adopted democracy than when they were ruled by Communist dictators! Perhaps -- but calling Russia's current form of government "democracy is stretching a bit. They're closer than they were in 1991 to be sure, but right now I think "oligarchy" would be more accurate. --Robert
Re: fertility and government
Quoting Wei Dai <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > According to a recent article [1] in Harvard International Review, because > of differences in fertility, the population growth rate in dictatorships > is higher than that in democracies at every income level. It says "an > average woman has one-half of a child more under dictatorship than under > democracy." As a result of this faster population growth, dictatorships > have greater GDP growth even though they have lower per capita GDP growth > compared to democracies. > > This information leads me to ask a couple of questions: > > 1. Why is fertility higher in dictatorships? Do dictators like bigger > populations, and democrats like smaller populations? Does population > growth influence choice of government? Or is there a third factor that > affects both fertility and form of government? What is the taxation burden in dictatorships versus democracies? I wonder if that shows a better correlation with fertility than government form. -- Susan Hogarth "If we cannot adjust our differences peacefully we are less than human." - F. Herbert
Re: fertility and government
> But in a dictatorship, while my > child-rearing opportunities suffer, my business opportunities suffer > even more. But what if you live under a capitalist dicatator, like Chile's General Pinochet or South Korea's General Park [is this name right?]? > > > I was under the impression that > fertility in the USSR and the Warsaw pact countries was very low, and > I think it's still very low in Russia. Yes. In fact, it's even lower since Russia and other Warsaw bloc countries adopted democracy than when they were ruled by Communist dictators! ~Alypius
Re: fertility and government
> In a message dated 7/14/03 9:52:40 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > > >A few people seem to have skipped over the first sentence of my post. > > > >The article said that fertility rate is higher in dictatorships than in > >democracies at *all income levels*. Meaning if you take any income level > >and compare dictatorships and democracies in the same level, the > >dictatorships will tend to have a higher fertility rate. > > Yes, this is why I've suggested the higher fertility rate may arise from > attempts to escape the oppression through the joys of sex. Right, and even if you assume access to birth control and the like, there may still be non-sexual "joys of child-rearing" that can accruse even under a dictatorship. More formally: In a dictatorship, the returns to non-child-rearing activities are reduced more than the returns to child-rearing, so child-rearing becomes relatively more attractive, so people do more of it. In other words, yes of course I'd rather raise my kids in a democracy than a dictatorship, just as I'd rather start a business (for example) in a democracy than a dictatorship. But in a dictatorship, while my child-rearing opportunities suffer, my business opportunities suffer even more. I can't think of any reason why this couldn't be true at every level. Still, I agree with Marko that we can't be sure that the underlying facts are true until we see how they treated the now-ex-communist countries of Eastern Europe/USSR. I was under the impression that fertility in the USSR and the Warsaw pact countries was very low, and I think it's still very low in Russia. I think the Russian population is decreasing. --Robert Book
Re: fertility and government
In a message dated 7/14/03 9:52:40 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: >A few people seem to have skipped over the first sentence of my post. > >The article said that fertility rate is higher in dictatorships than in >democracies at *all income levels*. Meaning if you take any income level >and compare dictatorships and democracies in the same level, the >dictatorships will tend to have a higher fertility rate. Yes, this is why I've suggested the higher fertility rate may arise from attempts to escape the oppression through the joys of sex.
Re: fertility and government
A few people seem to have skipped over the first sentence of my post. The article said that fertility rate is higher in dictatorships than in democracies at *all income levels*. Meaning if you take any income level and compare dictatorships and democracies in the same level, the dictatorships will tend to have a higher fertility rate. I've placed a copy of the article at http://www.ibiblio.org/weidai/przeworski.pdf. Unfortunately it does not have a bibliography which makes it hard to determine how the numbers it cites were calculated.
Re: fertility and government
On 2003-07-14, Wei Dai uttered: >1. Why is fertility higher in dictatorships? Do dictators like bigger >populations, and democrats like smaller populations? Maybe they're poorer in aggregate? I mean, sustenance-level poverty is one of the prime causal precedents of high fertility, and most dictatorships are poor ones, because of ineffective rule of law and wide-spread corruption. Sure, there are a few wealthy dictatorships (Saudi Arabia comes to mind), but that's because of independent factors (which usually do not touch the entire population). >Does population growth influence choice of government? Under extreme poverty, likely not -- poverty would drive people to take care of their own business, not politics. Under other conditions, probably yes -- relative poverty and the greed thereoff is how we got the welfare state. We would expect the per capita lack of income in young generations induced by population growth to affect at least redistributive policy. For example, I wouldn't be surprised if that was the precise description of how politics in India works right now. If the latter hypothesis pans out, we have to be real grateful that industrialisation proceeded so rapidly in the West, unhindered by full-grown democracy. Otherwise we never would have tunneled onto the level of wealth which throttles population growth, without bumping into a democratic political wall with the working class requiring income transfers -- the latter slows growth, so we could well have become stuck in between. >2. Should economists try to maximize GDP, or per capita GDP? Neither, I think. Maximizing GDP would not be conducive to general welfare. Maximizing per capita GDP today would also violate individual choice, if we also take into account individuals' time preferences. I would take full heed of the principle of revealed preference, and just let people choose. >Another interesting piece of information in this article is that >democratic regimes are more frequent in more developed countries, but >it's not because those countries are more likely to become democracies. >Rather it's because they are less likely to revert back to dictatorships. >Among democracies that have collapsed, the one with the highest per >capita income is Argentina in 1975 -- US$6055. I would side with Robert Kaplan (http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/97dec/democ.htm) and conjecture that democracy can only survive in a relatively homogeneous population, constrained by the rule of law. Secondarily I would claim that democracy can only survive where its transaction costs and the steadily increasing dead weight it produces can be absorbed by economic growth. Such conditions seem to sweep most of the unsuccessful democracies from the picture. They might sweep us under the rug as well. The conjecture might be false, but at least it supplies some basis for the claim that growth is "necessary" (which it of course isn't in any purely economic framework). -- Sampo Syreeni, aka decoy - mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED], tel:+358-50-5756111 student/math+cs/helsinki university, http://www.iki.fi/~decoy/front openpgp: 050985C2/025E D175 ABE5 027C 9494 EEB0 E090 8BA9 0509 85C2
Re: fertility and government
I haven't read the article, so everything that follows is speculation. I don't believe that historical evidence supports this claim. For example, former communist countries did not have high rates of population growth. I don't know the numbers for Fascist Countries, but I don't think that the rates were too high. I believe that more variation in population growth could be explained by looking at dominant religion than by looking at the form of government. Of course, there is some correlation between dominant religion and the form of government, which may lead to the conclusion that form of government and population growth are correlated. - Original Message - From: "Wei Dai" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, July 14, 2003 17:49 PM Subject: fertility and government > According to a recent article [1] in Harvard International Review, because > of differences in fertility, the population growth rate in dictatorships > is higher than that in democracies at every income level. It says "an > average woman has one-half of a child more under dictatorship than under > democracy." As a result of this faster population growth, dictatorships > have greater GDP growth even though they have lower per capita GDP growth > compared to democracies. > > This information leads me to ask a couple of questions: > > 1. Why is fertility higher in dictatorships? Do dictators like bigger > populations, and democrats like smaller populations? Does population > growth influence choice of government? Or is there a third factor that > affects both fertility and form of government? > > 2. Should economists try to maximize GDP, or per capita GDP? If the former > should they be supporting dictatorships? > > Another interesting piece of information in this article is that > democratic regimes are more frequent in more developed countries, but it's > not because those countries are more likely to become democracies. Rather > it's because they are less likely to revert back to dictatorships. Among > democracies that have collapsed, the one with the highest per capita > income is Argentina in 1975 -- US$6055. > > [1] A Flawed Blueprint. By: Przeworksi, Adam. Harvard International > Review, Spring2003, Vol. 25 Issue 1, p42.
Re: fertility and government
In a message dated 7/14/03 6:45:42 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: >1. Why is fertility higher in dictatorships? Do dictators like bigger >populations, and democrats like smaller populations? Does population >growth influence choice of government? Or is there a third factor that >affects both fertility and form of government? It may be that oppressed people turn to sex (and alcohol, etc.) more as a way of easing the pain of oppression.
Re: fertility and government
> 1. Why is fertility higher in dictatorships? Do dictators like bigger > populations, and democrats like smaller populations? Does population > growth influence choice of government? Or is there a third factor that > affects both fertility and form of government? The question should be: what causes dictatorship and do these conditions encourage high fertility? Well, we have a lot of data and research on both questions. Financially stable nations with democratic institutions tend not to succumb to dictatorships, while nations that explicitly reject capitalism tend to evolve into dictatorships. Ok - what causes high fertility? Low wealth, low education and no access to birth control. The nations "at risk" for dictatorship probably are poor and do not have good mass education. Fabio
