Abstract
Women can bear own children or adopt them. Extending economic theories of fertility, we provide a first formal theoretical treatment of the demand for adoption. It is shown that the propensity to adopt a child increases in the degree of own altruism, infertility, relatedness and emotional attachment to the child, costs of own child birth, and any adoption-specific monetary return that is received net of the costs of adopting the child. Aggregate adoption statistics are broadly consistent with the predictions of our model.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 101-114 |
Number of pages | 14 |
Journal | Journal of Economic Development |
Volume | 47 |
Issue number | 2 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2022 |
Keywords
- Adoption
- Altruism
- Children
- Demand for adoption
- Fertility
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Finance
- Economics and Econometrics