Accumulation Regimes in Dynastic Economies with Resource Dependence and Habit Formation

We analyze the consequences of habit formation for income levels and long-term growth in an overlapping generations model with dynastic altruism and resource dependence. If the strength of habits is below a critical level, the competitive economy displays an altruistic (Ramsey-like) equilibrium where consumption sustainability obeys the Stiglitz condition, and habits yield permanent effects on output levels due to transitional effects on growth rates, capital profitability and speed of resource depletion. If the strength of habits is above the critical threshold, the economy achieves a selfish (Diamond-like) equilibrium in which habits increase growth rates and resource depletion even in the long run, sustainability conditions are less restrictive, consumption and output grow faster than in Ramsey equilibria, but welfare is much lower. Results hinge on resource dependence, as different depletion rates modify the intergenerational distribution of wealth and thereby the growth rate attained in either equilibrium.Dynastic Altruism, Overlapping Generations, Capital-Resource Model, Habit Formation

An intertemporal, multi-region general equilibrium model of agricultural trade liberalization in the South Mediterranean NICs, Turkey, and the European Union

With the aid of an intertemporal, multi-region general equilibrium model, the authors study issues of agricultural trade liberalization, growth and capital accumulation in the context of a world economy moving towards a multi-polar structure. They specifically focus on Turkey, the European Union, the Middle East, and the Economies in Transition; and study alternative scenarios of formation of customs unions and increased trade orientation. The model is based on intertemporal general equilibrium theory with Ramsey-type dynamics. The world economy is fully endogenized within a 9-region specification, with Turkey, EU, Middle East and the Transition Economies constituting as one of the indigenous regions. A key feature of the model is its explicit recognition of both the commodity and foreign capital flows across regions in an endogenous setting, and its explicit portrayal of the out-of-steady state dynamics under an intertemporal optimization framework. They explore the short- versus the long-run economic impacts of alternative trade and investment policies on agricultural production, foreign trade, resource allocation, accumulation, consumer welfare, and income distribution in the regions of analyis. The results reveal significant gains from increased bilateral trade between the identified regions, and further underscore the crucial importance of financing commodity trade deficits in sustaining the accumulation patterns.Economics Models. ,Trade liberalization. ,Foreign trade Mathematical models. ,Agricultural trade. ,TMD ,

Review Of Theories And Models Of Economic Growth

The subject of this article is a review of the theories and models of economic growth. In the first section, the author analyzes the theories of economic growth, such as Schumpeter’s, Lewis’s and Rostow’s theory. In the second part there is a review of the models of economic growth. In this part the author divides models into two groups: exogenus models and endogenus models. The article finishes with conclusions concerning the issues discussed. The method used in writing the article is an analysis of the English and Polish literature on the subject.Celem artykułu jest przegląd teorii oraz modeli wzrostu gospodarzcego. W pierwszej części autor dokonuje analizy teorii wzrostu gospodarczego autorstwa: Schummpetera, Lewisa oraz Rostowa. W drugiej części opracowania zawarty jest przegląd modeli wzrostu gospodarczego. Autor analizowane modele dzieli na dwie grupy; modele egzogeniczne oraz modele endogeniczne. Artykuł kończy lista wniosków dotyczących przeprowadzonych analiz. Autor przygotowując artykuł wykorzystał metodę analizy literatury angielskiej i polskiej

Debt stabilization in a Non-Ricardian economy

In models with a representative infinitely lived household, tax smoothing implies that the steady state of government debt should follow a random walk. This is unlikely to be the case in overlapping generations (OLG) economies, where the equilibrium interest rate may differ from the policy maker's rate of time preference. It may therefore be optimal to reduce debt today to reduce distortionary taxation in the future. In addition, the level of the capital stock in these economies is likely to be suboptimally low, and reducing government debt will crowd in additional capital. Using a version of the Blanchard-Yaari model of perpetual youth, with both public and private capital, we show that it is optimal in steady state for the government to hold assets. However, we also show how and why this level of government assets can fall short of both the level of debt that achieves the optimal capital stock and the level that eliminates income taxes. Finally, we compute the optimal adjustment path to this steady state

Essays on fiscal policy in heterogeneous agent models

This thesis consists of three inter-related chapters designed to study the effects of fiscal policy on unemployment, the distribution of income, and social welfare in heterogeneous agent models incorporating unemployment. Each chapter employs a different setup for unemployment in a general equilibrium framework. These include models of equilibrium unemployment, right-to-manage union bargaining, and search and matching. Chapter 1 develops a model with equilibrium unemployment to study the effects of optimal taxation under commitment. Two models are explored: a model with zero economic profits and a model with non-zero economic profits due to the presence of productive public investment. We find that the optimal policy in these two models results in a different labour wedge which defines the gap between the marginal rate of substitution between labour and consumption and the marginal product of labour. In particular, the labour wedge can only be completely eliminated when the profits are absent from the model. It is further demonstrated that there exists a trade-off between efficiency and equity for the government in the model with non-zero economic profits. Chapter 2 examines the importance of imperfect competition in labour and product markets in determining the welfare effects of tax reforms assuming agent heterogeneity in capital holdings. The analysis shows that each of these market distortions, independently, results in welfare losses for at least one segment of the population after a capital tax cut and a concurrent labour tax increase. However, with both present in the model, the tax reform is Pareto improving in a realistic calibration to the UK economy. Chapter 3 extends a Mortensen-Pissarides search-and-matching framework with household heterogeneity to investigate the importance of search frictions in determining the welfare and distributional effects of tax reforms which re-allocate the tax burden from capital to labour income. The optimal tax policy under commitment is also analysed. We find that the tax reforms are Pareto improving in the long run, despite welfare losses for at least one segment of the population in the transition period. Finally, the long-run Ramsey policy implies a negative capital tax which is associated with a rise in the labour tax and a fall in the unemployment benefit

Tax Policy and Human Capital Formation with Public Investment in Education

This paper studies the effects of distortionary taxes and public investment in an endogenous growth OLG model with knowledge transmission. Fiscal policy affects growth in two respects: First, work time reacts to variations of prospective tax rates and modifies knowledge formation; second, public spending enhances labour efficiency but also stimulates physical capital through increased savings. It is shown that Ramsey-optimal policies reduce savings due to high tax rates on young generations, and are not necessarily growth-improving with respect to a pure private system. Non-Ramsey policies that shift the burden on adults are always growth-improving due to crowding-in effects: the welfare of all generations is unambiguously higher with respect to a private system, and there generally exists a continuum of non-optimal tax rates under which long-run growth and welfare are higher than with the Ramsey-optimal policy.Endogenous growth, Human capital, Overlapping generations, Tax policy, Public investment.

Tax policy and human capital formation with public investment in education

This paper studies the e¤ects of distortionary taxes and public in- vestment in an endogenous growth OLG model with knowledge trans- mission. Fiscal policy a¤ects growth in two respects: .rst, work time reacts to variations of prospective tax rates and modi.es knowledge formation; second, public spending enhances labour e¢ ciency but also stimulates physical capital through increased savings. It is shown that Ramsey-optimal policies reduce savings due to high tax rates on young generations, and are not necessarily growth-improving with respect to a pure private system. Non-Ramsey policies that shift the burden on adults are always growth-improving due to crowding-in e¤ects: the welfare of all generations is unambiguously higher with respect to a private system, and there generally exists a continuum of non-optimal tax rates under which long-run growth and welfare are higher than with the Ramsey-optimal policy.Endogenous growth, Human capital, Overlapping generations, Tax policy, Public investment.

Ramsey model of barriers to growth and skill-biased income distribution in South Africa

The paper integrates two mechanisms of economic growth, barriers to international spillovers and skill-biased effects on the income distribution. South Africa is an interesting case study because of dramatic changes in international barriers over time and policy focus to productivity and distribution. Barriers affect the balance between innovation and adoption in the productivity growth and thereby the skill-bias. The productivity dynamics and the distributional implications are investigated in an intertemporal Ramsey growth model. The model offers a calibrated tariff-equivalence measure of the sanction effect and allows for counterfactual analysis of no-sanctions. Increased openness is shown to reduce barriers to technology adoption leading to skill-biased economic growth and worsened income distribution. The result is consistent with the observation that economic growth under sanctions has been slow and with an increase in the relative wage of unskilled labor. The tradeoff between barriers and skill-bias, foreign spillover driven productivity growth and income distribution, obviously is a challenge for growth policy.

Uncertainty and economic growth in a stochastic R&D model

The paper examines an R&D model with uncertainty from the population growth, which is a stochastic cooperative Lotka-Volterra system, and obtains a suciently condition for the existence of the globally positive solution. The long-run growth rate of the economic system is ultimately bounded in mean and fluctuation of its growth will not be faster than the polynomial growth. When uncertainty of the population growth, in comparison with its expectation, is suciently large, the growth rate of the technological progress andthe capital accumulation will converge to zero. Inversely, when uncertainty of the population growth is suciently small or its expected growth rate is suciently high, the economic growth rate will not decay faster than the polyno-mial speed. The paper explicitly computes the sample average of the growth rates of both the technology and the capital accumulation in time and compares them with their counterparts in the corresponding deterministic model

Estate and Capital Gains Taxation: Efficiency and Political Economy Considerations

In this paper a simple dynastic overlapping-generations model with homogeneous agents is used to analyze the optimal use of capital income tax, labor income tax and estate tax. The results of this analysis add to the conventional wisdom about capital income taxation: while it is true that in the long run the estate tax rate should be set to zero, it is also true that other capital income taxation is a usable policy tool even in the steady state. The other contribution of the paper is the building of a simple dynamic political economy model where the structure of capital taxes is determined. In a median-voter framework with no policy commitment, estate taxation is used too heavily as a capital-tax-revenue-collecting tool relative to the second-best optimum for the social planner.Capital Income Taxation, Optimal Taxation, Political Economy