Publication Type
Master Thesis
Version
publishedVersion
Publication Date
2008
Abstract
In this study, I address the relationship between an often overlooked dimension of family structure--the spacing between children's births--and the degree of children's attainments such as Mathematics, Reading Cognition and Reading Comprehension. Comparing to the results of OLS estimation, 2SLS Estimation using Twin and Catholic as Instrument Variables shows less significant effects on children's attainments. Hausman Test shows that OLS estimators are not consistent with 2SLS estimators, which means there is endogenous problem in OLS estimation. As the result in 2SLS shows the different spacing effects in different spacing groups, it is possible to use nonlinear estimation (quadratic form of birth spacing) and semi-parametric estimation to draw the curve of birth spacing effects, and find the most efficient birth spacing, golden birth spacing. These two estimations, to a large extent, match each other in the range of golden birth spacing.
Keywords
birth order, children, educational attainment, family structure, human capital
Degree Awarded
MSc in Economics
Discipline
Behavioral Economics | Education
Supervisor(s)
HUANG, Fali
Publisher
Singapore Management University
City or Country
Singapore
Citation
XIE, Jing.
Birth Spacing Effect on Children's Attainments: Indentification Using Instrument Variables. (2008).
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/etd_coll/7
Copyright Owner and License
Author
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.