The Demand for Season of Birth
Quintana-Domeque, C; Oreffice, S; Clarke, D
Date: 2 May 2019
Journal
Journal of Applied Econometrics
Publisher
Wiley
Publisher DOI
Abstract
We study the determinants of season of birth for married women aged 20-45 in
the US, using birth certi cate and Census data. We also elicit the willingness to pay
for season of birth through discrete choice experiments implemented on the Amazon
Mechanical Turk platform. We document that the probability of a spring rst birth is
signi ...
We study the determinants of season of birth for married women aged 20-45 in
the US, using birth certi cate and Census data. We also elicit the willingness to pay
for season of birth through discrete choice experiments implemented on the Amazon
Mechanical Turk platform. We document that the probability of a spring rst birth is
signi cantly related to mother's age, education, race, ethnicity, smoking status during
pregnancy, receiving WIC food bene ts during pregnancy, pre-pregnancy obesity and
the mother working in \education, training, and library" occupations, whereas among
unmarried women without a father acknowledged on their child's birth certi cate,
all our ndings are muted. A summer rst birth does not depend on socioeconomic
characteristics, although it is the most common birth season in the US. Among married
women aged 20-45, we estimate the average marginal willingness to pay (WTP) for a
spring birth to be 877 USD. This implies a willingness to trade-o 560 grams of birth
weight to achieve a spring birth. Finally, we estimate that an increase of 1,000 USD
in the predicted marginal WTP for a spring birth is associated with a 15 pp increase
in the probability of obtaining an actual spring birth.
Economics
Faculty of Environment, Science and Economy
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