Can pro-natalist policy be effective?

The article is concerned with pro-natalist policies, examining empirically their effectiveness. There are proposed four hypotheses: continuous decline of the birth rate; adaptive model; natural-rate hypothesis; crowding-out hypothesis. Nine countries are tested: Germany, Italy, Sweden and France before the World War II and Romania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and East Germany during the communism. Best empirical results arise from the crowding-out hypothesis. Good results follow from the adaptive model and the continuous decline of birth rates. The natural-rate hypothesis has small explanatory power. Pro-natalist policies, according to this study, are not too effective.