A small town in Japan doubles its fertility rate www.economist.com

Not surprisingly, reporters have flocked to this remote corner of the country to see if there is something that promotes fecundity in the water flowing down from Mount Nagi. The cause appears to be more prosaic: economics. Alarmed by the dearth of children, the local government increased incentives to have babies. The fertility rate rose from 1.4 (meaning that the average woman will have 1.4 children in her lifetime, roughly the national rate) to 2.8 in 2014.