Natural Disasters in a Two-Sector Model of Endogenous Growth

This paper studies sustainability of economic growth considering the risk of natural disasters caused by pollution in an endogenous growth model with physical and human capital accumulation. We consider an environmental tax policy, and show that economic growth is sustainable only if the tax rate on the polluting input is increased over time and that the long-term rate of economic growth follows an inverted V-shaped curve relative to the growth rate of the environmental tax. The social welfare is maximized under a positive steadystate growth in which faster accumulation of human capital compensates the productivity loss due to declining use of the polluting input.natural disasters, human capital, endogenous depreciation, economic growth.

Internal vs. External Habit Formation in a Growing Economy with Overlapping Generations

This paper explores the roles of internal and external habit formation in a simple model of endogenous growth with overlapping generations. Unlike the representative agent settings in which the distinction between internal and external habits may not yield significant qualitative differences in working of the model economy, we show that the internal and external habit persistence in overlapping generations economies may have qualitatively different effects on the steady-state characterization as well as on the dynamic behavior of the economy. We also confirm that in an overlapping generations framework, whether the habits in the utility function takes subtractive or multiplicative forms may be critical both for long-run growth and for transitional dynamics.

Wealth Heterogeneity and Escape from the Poverty-Environment Trap

A mutual link between poverty and environmental degradation is examined in an overlapping generations model with environmental externality, human capital, and credit constraints. Environmental quality affects labor productivity and thus wealth dynamics, whereas wealth distribution determines the degree to which agents rely upon natural resources and therefore the evolution of environmental quality. This interaction creates a `poverty-environment trap,' where a deteriorated environment lowers income, which in turn accelerates environmental degradation. We show that greater wealth heterogeneity is the key to escaping the poverty-environment trap, although it has negative effects both on the environment and output when not in the trap.Poverty trap, Environmental degradation, Wealth distribution, Human capital.

Natural Disasters in a Two-Sector Model of Endogenous Growth

This paper studies sustainability of economic growth considering the risk of natural disasters caused by pollution in an endogenous growth model with physical and human capital accumulation. It is shown that economic growth is sustainable only if the tax rate on the polluting input is increased over time and that the long-term rate of economic growth follows an inverted V-shaped curve relative to the growth rate of the environmental tax. The social welfare is maximized under a positive steady-state growth in which faster accumulation of human capital compensates the productivity loss due to declining use of the polluting input.human capital, global warming, environmental tax, endogenous depreciation, nonbalanced growth path

Wealth Heterogeneity and Escape from the Poverty-Environment Trap

A mutual link between poverty and environmental degradation is examined in an overlapping generations model with environmental externality, human capital, and credit constraints. Environmental quality affects labor productivity and thus wealth dynamics, whereas wealth distribution determines the degree to which agents rely upon natural resources and therefore the evolution of environmental quality. This interaction creates a epoverty-environment trap,' where a deteriorated environment lowers income, which in turn accelerates environmental degradation. We show that greater wealth heterogeneity is the key to escaping the poverty-environment trap, although it has negative effects both on the environment and output when not in the trap.Poverty trap, Environmental degradation, Wealth distribution, Human capital.

Conformism and Structural Change

We study structural change in a simple, two-sector endogenous growth model and show that the presence of commodity-specific consumption externalities can be a source of structural change. When the degrees of consumption externalities are different between different goods, the two sectors grow at different rates, whereas the aggregate economy exhibits balanced growth in the sense that capital stock and expenditure grow at the same constant rate. Under the more restrictive condition such that the degrees of consumption externalities are the same, structural change does not occur. We also show that the dependence of the benchmark consumption levels on the past consumption is crucial for the divergent patterns of structural change across countries.