In many applications in applied statistics, researchers reduce the complexity of a data set by combining a group of variables into a single measure using a factor analysis or an index number. We argue that such compression loses information if the data actually have high dimensionality. We...

We develop a dynamic model of fertility, female labor supply and consumption to explain birth timing, particularly why more educated women delay fertility longer. We express the birth timing decision in an Euler equation framework by treating the probability of fertility each period as a...