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Abstract
In this paper, we describe and utilize methods to estimate the
consequences for children's schooling and birthweight of the exogenous
variability in the supply of births in one low income country, Malaysia. The
method utilizes information on contraceptive techniques employed by couples to
estimate directly the technology of reproduction and provides a means of
disentangling the biological and demand factors that contribute to the variation
in fertility across couples under a regime of imperfect fertility control. Our
results suggest that imperfect fertility control significantly influences both
the average schooling attainment and birthweight of children in Malaysia, with
couples having above-average propensities to conceive reporting higher levels of
actual fertility, significantly lower expectations of and actual schooling
attainment for their children, and lower birthweight children, on average, due
to smaller intervals between births.