Chapter 1 Introduction: Population and family economics

This chapter provides an overview of the rationale, contents, and organization of the Handbook of Population and Family Economics . Theodore Bergstrom's opening chapter traverses the burgeoning theoretical literature concerned with understanding the rationale for the formation, structure, and dissolution of, and resource allocations within families and households. Yoram Weiss' chapter focuses on family formation and dissolution, while the chapter by Jere Behrman focuses on models that describe the allocation of resources among members of households and the empirical evidence on intrahousehold distribution. The chapter by John Laitner examines the kin-based linkages among adult family members who do not co-reside in households. The second and third parts of the Handbook are concerned with the economics literature that examines fertility, infant mortality and adult mortality, and the interactions between mortality and fertility. The diversity and depth of the work reviewed and presented in the Handbook conveys both the progress that has been made by economists in understanding the forces shaping population processes, including the behavior of families, and many questions empirical and theoretical, that still remain.