Conspicious Consumption, Economic Growth, and Taxation: A Generalization

This paper studies the infuence of consumption externalities in the Ramsey model. In contrast to the recent literature, a quite general specification of preferences is used and the concept of the effective intertemporal elasticity of substitution is introduced. We give conditions for the observational equivalence between economies with consumption externalities and externality-free economies. An additional key result is that there exist several types of instantaneous utility functions in which the decentralized solution coincides with the socially planned one in spite of the presence of consumption externalities. The conditions for optimal taxation are also derived.Social status, Conspicuous consumption, Economic growth

Status Seeking in the Small Open Economy

In our modified version of the small open economy Ramsey model, we assume that agents have preferences over consumption and status which, in turn, is determined by relative wealth. This extension potentially eliminates the standard model's counterfactual result that an impatient country over time mortgages all of its capital and labor income. We show that the steady-state values of net assets and consumption, the speed of convergence and, in particular, the direction of adjustment during the transition depend crucially upon the degree of status consciousness. The latter also influences the economy's response to macro-economic shocks.Status seeking, Relative wealth, Open economy dynamics

The Quest for Status and Endogenous Labor Supply. The Relative Wealth Framework

This paper introduces the quest for status into the Ramsey model with endogenous labor supply. We focus our attention on relative wealth preferences. In contrast to relative consumption preferences, they allow for the possibility that agents work too little in the long run, while under both specifications the steady-state levels of consumption and the stock of physical capital exceed their socially optimal counterparts. The initial phase of transitional dynamics is unambiguously characterized by under-consumption and excessive work effort. The social optimum can be replicated by taxing capital income, where the optimal tax rate increases as physical capital accumulates.Status, Relative consumption, Relative wealth, Endogenous labor supply

Relative Consumption and Endogenous Labour Supply in the Ramsey Model: Do Status-Conscious People Work Too Much?

This paper introduces consumption externalities into a Ramsey-type model with endogenous labour supply and homogeneous agents. The instantaneous utility of any consumer is assumed to depend on work effort, own consumption and relative consumption, where the latter determines the individual's status in the society. Appropriate normality conditions with respect to consumption and leisure ensure that at least in the long run status-conscious individuals consume and work too much, compared to the social optimum, and that the capital stock is too high. Public policy can, however, induce the private sector to attain the social optimum by designing an optimal consumption tax policy.Status, Relative consumption, Work effort

The Quest for Status and Endogenous Labor Supply: The Relative Wealth Framework

This paper introduces the quest for status into the Ramsey model with endogenous labor supply. We focus our attention on relative wealth preferences. In contrast to relative consumption preferences, they allow for the possibility that agents work too little in the long run, while under both specifications the steady-state levels of consumption and the stock of physical capital exceed their socially optimal counterparts. The initial phase of transitional dynamics is unambiguously characterized by under-consumption and excessive work effort. The social optimum can be replicated by taxing capital income, where the optimal tax rate increases as physical capital accumulates.Status, Relative Consumption, Relative Wealth, Endogenous Labor Supply

Simple games versus weighted voting games: Bounding the critical threshold value

A simple game $(N,v)$ is given by a set $N$ of $n$ players and a partition of~$2^N$ into a set~$\mathcal{L}$ of losing coalitions~$L$ with value $v(L)=0$ that is closed under taking subsets and a set $\mathcal{W}$ of winning coalitions $W$ with $v(W)=1$. Simple games with $\alpha= \min_{p\geq 0}\max_{W\in {\cal W}, L\in {\cal L}} \frac{p(L)}{p(W)}<1$ are exactly the weighted voting games. We show that $\alpha\leq \frac{1}{4}n$ for every simple game $(N,v)$, confirming the conjecture of Freixas and Kurz (IJGT, 2014). For complete simple games, Freixas and Kurz conjectured that $\alpha=O(\sqrt{n})$. We prove this conjecture up to a $\ln n$ factor. We also prove that for graphic simple games, that is, simple games in which every minimal winning coalition has size~2, computing $\alpha$ is \NP-hard, but polynomial-time solvable if the underlying graph is bipartite. Moreover, we show that for every graphic simple game, deciding if $\alpha0$.Comment: 10 pages; the paper is a follow-up and merge of arXiv:1805.02192 and arXiv:1806.0317

Replication Origins in XenopusEgg Extract Are 5–15 Kilobases Apart and Are Activated in Clusters That Fire at Different Times

When Xenopus eggs and egg extracts replicate DNA, replication origins are positioned randomly with respect to DNA sequence. However, a completely random distribution of origins would generate some unacceptably large interorigin distances. We have investigated the distribution of replication origins in Xenopus sperm nuclei replicating in Xenopus egg extract. Replicating DNA was labeled with [3H]thymidine or bromodeoxyuridine and the geometry of labeled sites on spread DNA was examined. Most origins were spaced 5–15 kb apart. This regular distribution provides an explanation for how complete chromosome replication can be ensured although origins are positioned randomly with respect to DNA sequence. Origins were grouped into small clusters (typically containing 5–10 replicons) that fired at approximately the same time, with different clusters being activated at different times in S phase. This suggests that a temporal program of origin firing similar to that seen in somatic cells also exists in the Xenopus embryo. When the quantity of origin recognition complexes (ORCs) on the chromatin was restricted, the average interorigin distance increased, and the number of origins in each cluster decreased. This suggests that the binding of ORCs to chromatin determines the regular spacing of origins in this system

Macroscopic effects of the spectral structure in turbulent flows

Two aspects of turbulent flows have been the subject of extensive, split research efforts: macroscopic properties, such as the frictional drag experienced by a flow past a wall, and the turbulent spectrum. The turbulent spectrum may be said to represent the fabric of a turbulent state; in practice it is a power law of exponent \alpha (the "spectral exponent") that gives the revolving velocity of a turbulent fluctuation (or "eddy") of size s as a function of s. The link, if any, between macroscopic properties and the turbulent spectrum remains missing. Might it be found by contrasting the frictional drag in flows with differing types of spectra? Here we perform unprecedented measurements of the frictional drag in soap-film flows, where the spectral exponent \alpha = 3 and compare the results with the frictional drag in pipe flows, where the spectral exponent \alpha = 5/3. For moderate values of the Reynolds number Re (a measure of the strength of the turbulence), we find that in soap-film flows the frictional drag scales as Re^{-1/2}, whereas in pipe flows the frictional drag scales as Re^{-1/4} . Each of these scalings may be predicted from the attendant value of \alpha by using a new theory, in which the frictional drag is explicitly linked to the turbulent spectrum. Our work indicates that in turbulence, as in continuous phase transitions, macroscopic properties are governed by the spectral structure of the fluctuations.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure