Abstract
Fertility plays a crucial role in the process of economic development. Understanding its determinants is pivotal. While most studies emphasize real factors such as industrialization and education, they usually, with a few exceptions, overlook the financial sector channel of impact. To close the gap, the paper investigates the effect of banking development on fertility. Using panel time-series techniques to a panel of developed and developing countries, it finds that fertility rises with banking development but decreases with banking volatility. It also finds asymmetric responses of fertility to changes in banking development. Households tend to have more children when the banking sector is expanding but do not have less children when the banking sector is declining. The evidence holds for both bank credit to households and to firms. In addition, as additional sources of funds and investment opportunities, development in securities markets is found to raise fertility. Asymmetry is also detected with a larger fertility effect during market booms than busts.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 4220-4235 |
| Number of pages | 16 |
| Journal | International Journal of Finance and Economics |
| Volume | 28 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2023 Oct |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The authors are grateful to the Editor, Prof. Keith Pilbeam, and the two anonymous referees for their constructive comments and suggestions that greatly improve the paper. This work was supported by a Korea University Grant. The usual disclaimer applies.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Keywords
- asymmetry
- banking development
- banking volatility
- fertility
- firm credit
- household credit
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Accounting
- Finance
- Economics and Econometrics
