A THEORY OF CHILD ADOPTION*

Dirk Bethmann, Michael Kvasnicka

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

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 languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)101-114
Number of pages14
JournalJournal of Economic Development
Volume47
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2022

Keywords

  • Adoption
  • Altruism
  • Children
  • Demand for adoption
  • Fertility

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Finance
  • Economics and Econometrics

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