The demographic transition in a unified growth model of the English economy

A dynamic stochastic unified growth model is estimated from English economy data for almost a millennium. At the core of the (seven) overlapping generations, rational expectations structure is household choice about target number and quality of children. The trends of births, deaths, population and, the real wage, are closely matched by the estimated model. In the 19th century English fertility transition, the model shows how the generalized child price relative to the child quality price rose. The rising opportunity cost of education was as decisive for the transition as the parental shift to child quality.