Patent Policy in an Endogenous Growth Model

We investigate how the patent policy affects economic growth and social welfare based on an endogenous growth model with R&D activities. We show that the patent length that maximizes the social welfare is finite. Moreover, by introducing compulsory licensing, we also show that the patent length that maximizes the social welfare is not infinite even if the royalty rate can be controlled. Received June 29, 2001; revised version received February 5, 2002 Published online: February 17, 2003 We wish to thank two anonymous referees for their constructive comments. We also thank Akira Yakita for his helpful comments.     

Growth Effects of Bubbles in an Endogenous Growth Model

This paper examines the possibility of the existence of bubbles and their effects on the growth rate by using an endogenous growth model. A necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of steady-state equilibrium with bubbles is provided. If non-zero rates of the useless asset supply are allowed, a steady-state equilibrium with bubbles exists even if the growth rate of the bubbleless equilibrium is lower than the market interest rate. The growth rate in the steady state with bubbles depends positively on the supply rate of the useless asset. Dynamic properties of bubbles are also analysed.
JEL Classification Numbers: E52, O41, O42.     

Inflationary Financing of Government Expenditure in an Endogenous Growth Model

This paper analyses the role of inflation in economies with endogenous growth and congestion in public services. Optimal policy rules are derived for public services and investment. The other findings are as follows. Monetary policy should maximize economic growth. The more inefficient the public sector is, the higher the growth‐maximizing inflation rate is. If a currency union accepts a new member with an inefficient public sector, this will boost inflation in the union and decrease growth and welfare in all member economies of the union.     

On Welfare Criteria and Optimality in an Endogenous Growth Model

In this paper, we explore the consequences for optimality of a social planner adopting two different welfare criteria. The framework of analysis is an overlapping generations model with physical and human capital. We first show that, when the social welfare function is a discounted sum of individual utilities defined over consumption per unit of natural labor, the precise cardinalization of the individual utility function becomes crucial for both the characterization of the social optimum and the policies that support it. Also, decentralizing the social optimum requires an education subsidy that is definitely positive, but its size depends in a determinant way on the aforementioned cardinalization. In contrast, when the social welfare function is a discounted sum of individual utilities defined over consumption per unit of efficient labor, the precise cardinalization of preferences becomes irrelevant. More strikingly, along the optimal growth path, the education subsidy is negative, i.e., the planner should tax rather than subsidize investments in human capital.     

The Microeconomics of an R&D-Based Model of Endogenous Growth

This paper explores the microeconomic structure underlying a class of endogenous growth models in which product differentiation and stochastic quality growth coexist. The general equilibrium model generates a stationary stochastic equilibrium in which a nondegenerate ergodic distribution of firm size depends systematically on parameters of the model. Features of the model necessary for stable endogenous aggregate growth are explored, and predictions of the model are compared with microeconometric evidence on R&D intensity, firm growth, and concentration.     

Examination and Approval of New Patents in an Endogenous Growth Model

This study introduces the examination duration for newly developed goods into a standard R&D-based growth model. Producing such goods requires approval from an authority, and their examination incurs both cost and time. Thus, there is a lag between invention and production. This study investigates the effects of reducing the examination duration on examination backlogs (the number of newly invented goods under examination), economic growth, and welfare. We obtain an inverted-U shaped relationship between backlogs and duration, because reducing the duration decreases backlogs by accelerating the examination process, but simultaneously increases backlogs by promoting R&D and increasing the number of applications. In addition, we demonstrate that reducing the examination duration promotes economic growth. However, a rather short examination duration needs considerable resources as the examination has a higher cost. Thus, an extremely short duration hurts welfare. Our numerical analysis reveals the existence of an optimal examination duration.     

Status,Risk-Taking and Intertemporal Substitution in an Endogenous Growth Model

This paper examines intertemporal risk-taking in a stochastically growing economy with externalities in human capital accumulation where agents have preferences for social status. In order to isolate the effects of status concerns on long-run expected growth, the analysis is embedded in a non-expected utility setting, which disentangles the effects from risk aversion and intertemporal substitution. We examine the interaction between status desire and risk, risk aversion and intertemporal substitution. The externalities generated by the status game are able to correct the allocative distortions from the knowledge spillovers.Acknowledgement The author would like to thank an anonymous referee for his valuable comments.     

Anticipated Environmental Policy and Transitional Dynamics in an Endogenous Growth Model

This paper makes a new attempt toinvestigate how an anticipatedenvironmental policy governs the transitionaldynamics of an economy when pollutionexternality is taken into account. Themodeling strategy we use is an AK technologyendogenous growth framework with an endogenousleisure-labor choice. It is found that, unlikeinelastic labor supply framework, a rise inpublic abatement expenditure will stimulate thebalanced economic growth rate. It is alsofound that public abatement technology plays animportant role in determining the transitionaladjustment of the economic growth rate inresponse to a pre-announced environmentalpolicy.     

Patents in a Model of Endogenous Growth

This paper examines patent protection in an endogenous-growth model. Our aim is twofold. First, we show how the patent policies discussed by the recent patent-design literature can influence R&D in the endogenous-growth framework, where the role of patents has been largely ignored. Second, we explore how the general-equilibrium framework contributes to the results of the patent-design literature. In a general-equilibrium model, both incentives to innovate and monopoly distortions depend on the proportion of industries that conduct R&D. Furthermore, patents affect the allocation of R&D resources across industries, and patents can distort resources away from industries where they are most productive.     

The Transmission of Sustained Growth through the Terms of Trade in an Endogenous Growth Model

This paper develops a two‐country model of endogenous growth and international trade in intermediate goods. In autarky just one of the economies enjoys sustained growth. The trade situation may be characterized by complete specialization of both countries, or by incomplete specialization of the growing economy. In either case, trade transmits perpetual growth to the stagnant economy because of the permanent improvements in its terms of trade. The existence of a non‐reproducible factor in the growing economy is crucial to ensure propagation of growth. Moreover, under incomplete specialization countries converge in per capita income. This result relies on two assumptions. First, there must be a large enough share of world income to pay for the input in which the stagnant economy has comparative advantage. Second, all technologies producing intermediate goods should be equally intensive in the non‐reproducible factor.     

The Transition to Market Economies in an Endogenous Growth Model with Altruistic Agents

This paper considers an endogenous transition from a self-sufficient traditional economy to a market economy and its consequences on fertility and growth. The transition can occur if private intergenerational transfers are unable to secure old-age consumption as adequately as savings on capital markets; otherwise individuals stay in the traditional economy unless the mass-production technology in the market economy is sufficiently more advanced than individually accessible technologies. Markets emerge only if per capita output exceeds a certain level given a fixed cost of forming markets. The transition reduces fertility and promotes growth under plausible restrictions.
JEL Classification : E 20; J 13; O 10     

Fiscal and Monetary Policy Interactions in an Endogenous Growth Model With Financial Intermediaries

This paper presents a framework that can help reconcile conflicting findings in the growth-inflation literature. Here, the behavior of financial intermediaries plays a crucial role in the determination of the economy's inflation and real growth rates. Absent any restrictions on financial intermediation, there will be a unique equilibrium when agents are fairly risk averse. In this case, an increase in seigniorage-financed government spending will always be inflationary and detrimental to growth. When agents exhibit a low degree of risk aversion, multiple equilibria emerge and a positive relation between inflation and growth à la Tobin can be observed.     

可再生资源约束下的内生增长模型研究

关于可持续发展,新经济增长理论主要关注耗竭性资源与环境问题对长期经济增长的影响。通过假设技术进步取决于研发投入,本文建立了一个包含可再生资源的内生增长模型,采用最优控制理论得到了模型的稳态增长解,并得出结论:可持续增长不能单方面强调技术进步,对可再生资源的合理利用也是实现可持续增长的有效途径。     

Social Status,Labour Market Frictions and Endogenous Growth

This paper develops an endogenous growth model that incorporates wealth‐enhanced preferences for social status and labour market frictions to investigate the role of social status in determining unemployment and long‐run growth. We show that the increase in the desire for social status reduces the unemployment rate, but its effect on long‐run growth is unclear. We then calibrate our model to the US economy and find that an increase in the desire for social status lowers the unemployment rate and enhances the economic growth rate in the long run.     

Learning-by-doing versus Schooling in a Model of Endogenous Growth

A two sector model of learning-by-doing measured by means of production aggregated over time and of human capital accumulation in a schooling sector is presented. Time utilization is rival between schooling and learning-by-doing. Depending on the sum of elasticities of the accumulated factors (i.e., of production experience and educational human capital) in both sectors, a situation with or without endogenous growth results. Dynamic optimization of the choice between leisure and working and of the division of human capital between education and production is executed. Transitional dynamics are analyzed for a Cobb-Douglas example and a numerical simulation is performed.JEL classification: C61, D90, O41.Acknowledgements The author would like to thank Eric C. Meyer and two anonymous referees for helpful comments. The usual caveats apply.revised version received November 23, 2003     

A Two-Sector Model of Endogenous Growth with Leisure

This paper analyses the equilibrium dynamics of an endogenous growth model with physical and human capital in which leisure enters the utility function. The inclusion of leisure introduces a potential source of non-convexities in our optimization problem and leads to the possible existence of multiple balanced growth paths. This multiplicity of optimal stationary solutions is linked to the assumption that education has no effect on the quality of leisure, and hence a relatively more educated economy may choose to grow faster, and devote more time to income-directed activities. To characterize the set of optimal solutions in our non-concave optimization framework we develop a new method of analysis that should be of interest in related applications.     

Transitional Dynamics and Indeterminacy of Equilibria in an Endogenous Growth Model with a Public Input

The authors analyze an endogenous growth model with economy–wide increasing returns, in which a public input is essential for private production. Within such a framework, it is shown that a continuum of equilibria and global indeterminacy can arise for reasonable parameter values, simply due to the presence of endogenous public policy. This can potentially account for "leapfrogging" or retroceding growth experiences. It is demonstrated how fiscal policy can serve as a selection device among different convergent paths.     

经济增长模型中的储蓄率内生化问题

本文讨论经济增长模型中储蓄率内生化的各种问题,包括有限寿命与无限寿命、确定寿命与不确定寿命、不确定寿命下的消费决策方法、不确定寿命下非预料死亡者的遗产如何处理、个人生命如何分期、个人如何预期未来收入等。强调了寿命假定与人口年龄结构的内在联系,提出了寿命不确定下个人消费决策的新方法,探讨了有关未来收入的趋势预期和水平预期,并分析了哪一种更接近实际。     

Dynamic Analysis of an Endogenous Growth Model with Investment‐specific Technological Change

This paper examines a dynamically optimal subsidy policy in a continuous‐time version of the endogenous growth model developed by Krusell (Krusell, P. (1998) “Investment‐Specific R&D and the Decline in the Relative Price of Capital”, Journal of Economic Growth, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 131–141), in which investment‐specific technological progress occurs endogenously because of R&D performed by monopolistic firms. It is demonstrated that a combination of the time‐invariant subsidy for investment and the time‐variant subsidy for R&D enables the market equilibrium to replicate the socially optimal allocation.     

Monetary Policy,Financial Frictions,and Heterogeneous R&D Firms in an Endogenous Growth Model*

Motivated by empirical facts, I construct an endogenous growth model in which heterogeneous research and development (R&D) firms are financially constrained and use cash to finance R&D investments. I also examine the optimal monetary policy. The effects of financial constraint crucially depend on whether R&D firms are homogeneous or heterogeneous regarding R&D productivity. If R&D firms are homogeneous, then the zero nominal interest rate (i.e., the Friedman rule) is always optimal under severe financial constraint. Heterogeneity in R&D productivity leads to the opposite result. With heterogeneity, severe financial constraint makes the strictly positive nominal interest rate welfare-improving under a plausible condition.