Children and Female Labour Supply: A Survey of Econometric Approaches

The way in which economist try to learn about economics responses, such as the effects of children on female labour suppy, can be broken down into three steps: 1.the consideration of information already available called a priori information, including inferences based on what economist believe they know about other aspects of economic behavior, and the formulation of qualitative, nonparametric behavioral concepts and hypotheses that are usually stated in words;2.the specification of mathematical models that are consistent with the a priori information and which provide parametric representation of the behavioral hypotheses of interest;3.The use of available data and statistical methods to estimate, and then to test and interpret, the parameters of the specified mathematical models.