Estimation of causal effects of fertility on economic wellbeing: evidence from rural Vietnam

Estimating the effects of demographic events on households’ living standards introduces a range of statistical issues. In this paper we analyze this topic considering our observational study as a quasi-experiment in which the treatment is expressed by childbearing events between two time points and the outcome is the change in equivalized household consumption expenditure. Our main question concerns how one can best estimate causal effects of demographic events on households’ economic wellbeing. We first provide a brief discussion of different methods for causal inference stressing their differences with respect to the underlying assumptions and data requirement.