Cash transfers and fertility: how the introduction and cancellation of a child benefit affected births and abortions

González, LibertadTrommlerová, Sofia Karina2023-07-062023-07-062023González L, Trommlerová SK. Cash transfers and fertility: how the introduction and cancellation of a child benefit affected births and abortions. J Hum Resour. 2023;58(3):783-818. DOI: 10.3368/jhr.59.1.0220-10725R20022-166Xhttp://hdl.handle.net/10230/57477We study the effects of a universal child benefit on fertility in Spain in the 2000s using administrative, population-level data, identifying separately the effects driven by conceptions and abortions. We exploit the timing of the introduction and cancellation of the policy to infer when the effects on abortions and births can be expected. We find that the introduction led to a 3 percent increase, the announcement of the cancellation to a transitory 4 percent increase, and the cancellation to a 6 percent decrease in birth rates. We perform heterogeneity analysis and find suggestive evidence of both a timing (“tempo”) and a level effect (“quantum”).application/pdfeng© 2023 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System. This open access article is distributed under the terms of the CC-BY-NC-ND license (http://creative commons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0) and is freely available online at: http://jhr.uwpress.orgFecunditat humanaAvortamentCash transfers and fertility: how the introduction and cancellation of a child benefit affected births and abortionsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.3368/jhr.59.1.0220-10725R2info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess