While fertility is positively correlated across generations, the causal effect of children's experience with larger sibships on their own fertility in adulthood is poorly understood. Using the sex composition of the two first-born children as an instrumental variable, we estimate the effect of...

Fertility contagion through social networks increasingly attracts the interest of demographers. While these theories propose a causal mechanism, they are rarely put to test in a plausibly causal statistical design. This study applies quasi-experimental techniques to distinguish network effects...

Numerous studies have shown that fertility behavior is spatially clustered. In addition to pure context effects, two causal mechanisms could drive this pattern. First, neighbors may influence each other's fertility behavior, and second, household fertility intentions and behavior may influence...

While fertility is positively correlated across generations, the causal effect of children's experience with larger sibships on their own fertility in adulthood is poorly understood. Using the sex composition of the two first-born children as an instrumental variable, we estimate the effect of...