A reply to Walker’s note: A comment on Taşiran’s ‘Wage and income effects on the timing and spacing of births in Sweden and in the United States’

Walker (1997) criticizes one of the conclusions in my book Tas?iran (1995), that Heckman and Walker’s very high negative wage rate and positive income effects on Swedish fertility are very sensitive. In this paper, I explain, first, that my results are not only based on the series Walker mentions, but also on other series in both SFS and HUS data sets. Second, the combined aggregate and micro wage series he criticizes is mainly derived with Heckman and Walker. Third, by discussing the points he raises for the combination strategy, I show that his revised results are also supporting my conclusion. Received: 7 June 1996/Accepted: 16 July 1997 I am grateful to Anders Klevmarken, Lennart Hjalmarsson, Bj?rn Gustafsson and Ann Veiderpass for their valuable suggestions and discussions on an earlier version of this paper. Thanks also to two anonymous referees for their comments and to the responsible editor of this journal Klaus F. Zimmermann, for his encouragement and many helpful comments. Any remaining errors are my own. Responsible editor: Klaus F. Zimmermann.