Did Improvements in Household Technology Cause the Baby Boom? Evidence from Electrification, Appliance Diffusion, and the Amish

Bailey is an Assistant Professor of Economics and a Faculty Affiliate at the Population Studies and National Poverty Centers at the University of Michigan, and a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Collins is a Professor of Economics at Vanderbilt University and a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. We are grateful to Soren Anderson, John Bound, Alison Buttenheim, Charlie Brown, John DiNardo, Robert Driskill, Richard Easterlin, Daniel Eisenberg, Robert Gordon, Chris House, Karen Johnson-Weiner, Miles Kimball, David Lam, Robert Margo, Elyce Rotella, Katharine Shester, Matthew Shapiro, Jeff Smith, and Gary Solon for useful comments and suggestions. We also thank participants in seminars at Clemson University, the CSWEP Junior Faculty Mentoring Workshop, the Economic History Association Meetings, Lehigh University, McGill University, the National Bureau of Economic Research, the Population Association of America's Meetings, Queen's University, the University of Michigan (Economic History, Macroeconomics, and Population Studies), University of North Carolina-Greensboro, and the University of Toronto. Emily Boleman, Emily Gray, and Brad Hershbein provided outstanding research assistance. We gratefully acknowledge financial support from the National Science Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and helpful comments from Ananth Seshadri and Guillaume Vandenbroucke. The views expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

• January 7, 2009