Template-type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Del Bono, Emilia
Author-Name: Francesconi, Marco
Author-Name: Ermisch, John
Title: Intrafamily resource allocations: a dynamic model of birth weight
Abstract: This paper estimates a model of dynamic intrahousehold investment behavior which incor-porates family ¯xed e®ects and child endowment heterogeneity. This framework is applied to large American and British survey data on birth outcomes, with focus on the e®ects of antenatal parental smoking and maternal labor supply net of other maternal behavior and child characteristics. We ¯nd that maternal smoking during pregnancy reduces birth weight and fetal growth, while paternal smoking has virtually no e®ect. Mothers' work interruptions of up to two months before birth have a positive e®ect on birth outcomes, especially among British children. Parental behavior appears to respond to permanent family-speci¯c unobservables and to child idiosyncratic endowments in a way that sug- gests that parents have equal concerns, rather than e±ciency motives, in allocating their prenatal inputs across children. Evidence of equal concerns emerges also from the analysis of breastfeeding decisions, although the e®ects in this case are weaker.

Creation-Date: 20080916
Number: 2008-27
Publication-Status: published
File-URL: https://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/files/working-papers/iser/2008-27.pdf
File-Format: Application/pdf
Handle: RePEc:ese:iserwp:2008-27