81 research outputs found
When Veblen meets Krugman
No full textWe introduce relative concerns in the form of conspicuous consumption in a standard economic geography model a la Krugman. The primary intuition is that conspicuous consumption imposes a negative externality on some agents and generates a centrifugal force. We show that this is not always the case as the relative concern also rises the demand for the sophisticated good, strengthening the standard centripetal market size effect. We show that the resulting force is very sensitive to the topology of the network of "conspicuous" links in each region and on the level of economic integration. For instance, with relatively large shares of income devoted to the consumption of the standard good, we show that when trade is moderately costly and classes of workers are segregated, relative concerns tends to stabilize the symmetric equilibrium; on the other hand, if workers of different classes interact via their relative concerns, conspicuous consumption is a centripetal force generating stable fully or partially agglomerated equilibria. Finally, when the level of integration is high, the intuition holds and even small relative concerns destabilize the full agglomeration equilibrium, which is stable in the Krugman model
The Economic Effects of Restrictions on Government Budget Deficits: Imperfect Privte Credit Markets
No full textWe consider a pure-exchange overlapping-generations model We consider a pure-exchange overlapping-generations model with many consumers per generation and many goods per period. As in Ghiglino and Shell (2000), there is a government that collects taxes, distributes transfers and faces budget deficit restrictions. We introduce, for realism and symmetry with the government, imperfection in the private credit markets. We find that with constraints on individual credit and anonymous (i.e., non-personalized) lump-sum taxes, strong (or 'global') irrelevance of the government budget deficit is not possible, and weak irrelevance can hold only in very special situations. With credit constraints and anonymous consumption taxes, weak irrelevance holds provided the number of tax instruments is sufficiently large and at least one consumer's credit constraint is not binding.
The dynamics of innovations and citations
No full textWe present a model in which patent citations occur as new ideas are produced from combinations of existing ideas. An idea's usability in this process is represented as an interval in a variety space of ideas, whose length determines the likelihood of citation. This process endogenously derives exponential aging of patents, which is consistent with empirical observations. The endogeneity of aging sets our process apart from the standard preferential attachment literature
Risk aversion in a model of endogenous growth
No full textDespite the evidence on incomplete financial markets and substantial risk being borne by innovators, current models of growth through creative destruction predominantly model innovators’ as risk neutral. Risk aversion is expected to reduce the incentive to innovate and we might fear that without insurance innovation completely disappears in the long run. The present paper introduces risk averse agents into an occupational choice model of endogenous growth in which insurance against failure to innovate is not available. We derive a clear negative relationship between the level of risk aversion and long run growth. Surprisingly, we show that in an equilibrium there exists a cut-off value of risk aversion below which the growth rate of the mass of innovators tends to a strictly positive constant. In this case, innovation persists on the long run and consumption per capita grows at a strictly positive rate. On the other hand, for levels of risk aversion above the cut-off value, the economy eventually stagnates
The role of the wealth distribution on output volatility
No full textWe explore the link between wealth inequality and business cycle fluctuations in a two-sector neoclassical growth model with endogenous labor and heterogeneous agents. Assuming that wealth inequality is described by the distribution of shares of capital, we show that in the most plausible situations wealth equality is a stabilizing factor. In particular, when wealth is Pareto distributed and preferences generate non-linear absolute risk tolerance indices, a rise in the Gini index may only be associated to a rise in volatility. When individual preferences are such that the individual absolute risk tolerance indices are linear, as with HARA utility, even a low level of taste heterogeneity ensures that a rise in inequality may not reduce volatility, and this independently of the wealth distribution. Finally, we note that such a clear result is at odd with the existing related literature.
Wealth inequality and dynamic stability
No full textIn this paper we explore the link between wealth inequality and stability in a two-sector neoclassical growth model with heterogeneous agents. The stability of the steady state depends on the various parameters of the model and in particular on individual preferences. We show that when consumers have identical preferences and the inverse of absolute risk aversion (or risk tolerance) is a strictly convex function, inequality is a factor that favors instability. In the opposite case, inequality favors stability. Our characterization also shows that whenever absolute risk tolerance is linear, as when preferences exhibit hyperbolic absolute risk aversion (HARA), wealth heterogeneity is neutral. As there is not yet evidence on the concavity of absolute risk tolerance, our results unfortunately do not lead to a unique conclusion on the sign of the effect of wealth inequality on stability.Economic growth; Heterogeneity; Wealth and Income Inequality; Instability
The economic effects of restrictions on government budget deficits: imperfect private credit markets
No full textThe present paper is an extension of Ghiglino and Shell [7] to the case of imperfect consumer credit markets. We show that with constraints on individual credit and only anonymous (i.e., non-personalized) lump-sum taxes, strong (or “global”) irrelevance of government budget deficits is not possible, and weak (or “local”) irrelevance can hold only in very special situations. This is in sharp contrast to the result for perfect credit markets. With credit constraints and anonymous consumption taxes, weak irrelevance holds if the number of tax instruments is sufficiently large and at least one consumer's credit constraint is not binding. This is an extension of the result for perfect credit markets. Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2003Keywords and Phrases: Balanced-budget amendment, Consumption taxes, Credit constraints, Government budget deficit irrelevance, Lump-sum taxes, Overlapping generations., JEL Classification Numbers: D50, D90, E52, E60, H62, H63.,
On the Impact of Heterogeneity on Indeterminacy
No full textSome recent research indicates that the occurrence of indeterminacy in mod- els with externalities may be overstated because these models ignore agents’ heterogene- ity. We consider a neoclassical two-sector growth model with technological externalities. Agents are heterogenous in respect to their shares of the initial stock of capital and in labor endowments. We find that the sign of the effect of inequality on indeterminacy is not pinned down by the standard properties of preferences. However, when the in- verse of absolute risk aversion is a convex (respectively concave) function homogeneity (heterogeneity) tends to neutralize the external effects and eliminate indeterminacy.endogenous growth, heterogeneity, indeterminacy, inequalities, income distribution.
The impact of heterogeneity on indeterminacy
No full textThe aim of the paper is to explore the link between agent's heterogeneity and indeterminacy in a general equilibrium economy. The framework is provided by the two-sector growth model with technological externalities of Boldrin and Rustichini (1994) in which heterogeneous agents are introduced. We first show that the occurrence of indeterminacy depends on the distribution in labor endowments and in shares on initial capital among the agents as well as on preferences and technology. We find that the sign of the effect of heterogeneity on indeterminacy is not pinned down by the standard properties of preferences, a fact that might be surprising in view of some recent results (as in Herrendorf et al. (2000)). However, when risk aversion is a concave or a slightly convex function, the heterogeneity is a factor that opposes the external effects in generating indeterminacy.Endogenous growth; Heterogeneity; Indeterminacy; Inequalities
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