The Long-run Determinants of Fertility: One Centuryof Demographic Change 1900-1999

We examine the long-run relationship between fertility, mortality, and incomeusing panel cointegration techniques and the available data for the last century.Our main result is that mortality changes and growth of income per capita account for amajor part of the fertility change characterizing the demographic transition. The fertilityreduction triggered by falling mortality, however, is not enough to overcompensatethe positive eect of falling mortality on population growth. This means that growthof income per capita is essential to explain the observed secular decline of populationgrowth. These results are robust against alternative estimation methods, potentialoutliers, sample selection, dierent measures of mortality, and the sample period...