Solving for optimum U.S. fertility

 [[{“value”:”In this post, we show that under the median estimated elasticity the socially optimal fertility rate is 2.4 in the US, well above today’s 1.7, given that the US should place a value of 14.28x GDP per additional birth ($1.17mn per birth). Furthermore, to achieve this, the US should be willing to spend the equivalent
The post Solving for optimum U.S. fertility appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.”}]] 

In this post, we show that under the median estimated elasticity the socially optimal fertility rate is 2.4 in the US, well above today’s 1.7, given that the US should place a value of 14.28x GDP per additional birth ($1.17mn per birth). Furthermore, to achieve this, the US should be willing to spend the equivalent of 3.8% of its GDP ($290K per birth) per birth. For context, the existing child tax credit is worth $2000/year, or $26K present value. We’d like to stress that these figures are highly uncertain, because of both the varying welfare gain from more births, and also varying estimates of how effective subsidising births are. Even still, in the main case, the US government should seriously consider greatly increasing its child tax credits, and explore more creative and ambitious solutions to address this looming demographic crisis.

Here is more from Duncan McClements and Jason Hausenloy.  Obviously various assumptions can be debated here…

The post Solving for optimum U.S. fertility appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

 Economics, Philosophy