How persistent and universal has the two child family ideal been in Europe during the last three decades? We analyse responses of women of reproductive age from 168 surveys conducted in 37 countries in 1979-2012. A two-child ideal has become nearly universal among women in all parts of Europe....

Recent micro-level studies have suggested that globalization - in particular, economic globalization - breeds political polarization and populism. This study examines if those results generalize by examining the country-level association between vote shares for European populist parties and...

The Black Death killed 40% of Europe's population between 1347-1352, making it one of the largest shocks in the history of mankind. Despite its historical importance, little is known about its spatial effects and the effects of pandemics more generally. Using a novel dataset that provides...

This study provides a systematic analysis of parity components of the cohort fertility decline in 32 low-fertility countries in Europe, North America, Australia and East Asia. We decompose the change in cohort fertility in each country among women born between 1940 and 1970 using parity...

This study discusses fertility trends and variation in countries that have completed the transition from high to around-replacement fertility in the 1950s-1980s - especially in Europe, East Asia and North America - and summarises the key findings that are relevant for the countries with a more...

The persistence of socioeconomic outcomes across generations acts as a barrier to a society's ability to exploit its resources efficiently. In order to derive policy measures which aim at accelerating intergenerational mobility, we review the existent body of research on the causes, effects and...