The household production literature emphasizes that technical or biological processes condition input selection by households in their production activities, along with prices and income. Exogenous variations in health, to the extent that they are perceived by individuals (heterogeneity), lead to correlations between inputs and health outcomes that cannot be used to derive causal conclusions. Therefore, estimates of health technology must be obtained from a behavioral model in which health inputs are themselves choices. Consistent estimates are reported of the effect of endogenous inputs, such as medical care, smoking, and fertility, on birth weight and fetal growth in the presence of health heterogeneity.

This paper identifies demand induced changes in the price of women's time as a factor determining the fertility transition.Changes in world prices of grains and animal products in the 1880's affected the composition of Swedish output and labor demands.The increase in the price of butter relative to grains improved women's wages relat.ive to men's, and contributed thereby to the decline in fertility.When child mortality, urbanization, and the real wages of men are held constant, aggregate county-leveldata for a 50-year period, 1860-1910, suggest that this exogenous appreciation in the value of women's time, relative to men's, explains a quarter of the concurrent decline in Swedish fertility.

The analytical framework of this study focuses on several conceptual variables for which empirical counterparts are not readily available: the death of children; the economic resources of the family that grow out of the efforts of husband, wife, and child, each of whose contribution affects differently the relative attractiveness of children; the educational system that has a direct bearing on the cost of rearing children, influences the achievement goals parents set for their offspring, and may also explain differential access to modern methods of birth control; and finally, the web of social and public policies that shape the function of the family and the role of children therein, altering the costs and benefits of rearing a large or small number of children. (Author)

The household production literature emphasizes that technical or biological processes condition input selection by households in their production activities, along with prices and income. Exogenous variations in health, to the extent that they are perceived by individuals (heterogeneity), lead to correlations between inputs and health outcomes that cannot be used to derive causal conclusions. Therefore, estimates of health technology must be obtained from a behavioral model in which health inputs are themselves choices. Consistent estimates are reported of the effect of endogenous inputs, such as medical care, smoking, and fertility, on birth weight and fetal growth in the presence of health heterogeneity.