This paper examines the birth rate’s effect on economic growth focusing especially on China from the year 1979 to the year 2014 since this was the period when the one-child policy was applied. This study uses a panel dataset that contains data of 28 Chinese provinces and uses Fixed Effect and system GMM as the main estimation methods to conduct an empirical analysis. Also, this research uses the rate of people who only have one child as an instrumental variable to control for the endogeneity of the birth rate for the year 2000 to the year 2010. The results suggest that birth rate has no significant effect on the growth of GDP. Although this result is not consistent with the results of some previous research that birth rate has a positive effect on economic growth, it suggests some possible reasons for the introduction of the new two-child policy in December 2015.
The author has given permission for this work to be deposited in the Digital Archive of Colorado College.
Colorado College Honor Code upheld.
Includes bibliographical references.
The author has given permission for this work to be deposited in the Digital Archive of Colorado College.
Colorado College Honor Code upheld.