The historical fertility transition is the process by which much of Europe and North America went from high to low … fertility in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This transformation is central to recent accounts of long …-run economic growth. Prior to the transition, women bore as many as eight children each, and the elasticity of fertility with …

19th century in the United States. We construct new measures of fertility changes and measures of railroad access at the … county level from 1850 - 1890. We are able to document market-access-induced changes in fertility due to both extensive … margins (shifts in occupations with different average fertility rates) and intensive margins (changes in fertility within each …