Ageing and public capital accumulation

We have examined the effects of ageing on the balanced-growth-maximizing public investment policy in an overlapping generations model with growth engines of public capital accumulation. Extended life expectancy tends to increase individual savings, while the increased old-age dependency requires more resources to be allocated to consumption in the economy. Declining working population makes for a severe trade-off between private and public capital accumulation. It is shown that as ageing proceeds, not only the income tax rate must be raised to accelerate public capital formation but the expenditure share of maintenance should be increased in order to maximize the balanced-growth rate.      

Dynamic Investment Strategies to Reaction–Diffusion Systems Based upon Stochastic Differential Utilities

We study the dynamic investment strategies in continuous-time settings based upon stochastic differential utilities of Duffie and Epstein (Econometrica 60:353–394, 1992). We assume that the asset prices follow interacting Itô-Poisson processes, which are known to be the so-called reaction–diffusion systems. Stochastic maximum principle for stochastic control problems described by some backward-stochastic differential equations that are driven by Poisson jump processes allows us to derive the optimal investment strategies as well as optimal consumption. We shall furthermore propose a numerical procedure for solving the associated nested quasi-linear partial differential equations.     

Effects of international sharing of pollution abatement burdens on income inequality among countries

Improvements in environmental quality will boost output production and hence economic growth. However, although environmental abatement equally benefits all economies in the world, it is shown that, if the private productive resources are not yet accumulated sufficiently in low income economies, income inequality among economies can be widened in the short term not only under equal burden sharing of pollution abatement but even under income-proportional burden sharing. When the marginal productivity is diminishing, the negative effect of the burden is large relative to the positive effect of the improved environment in economies in which resources are not accumulated sufficiently.     

Health Status Risks and the Efficiency of Social Security Systems

We studied the allocative efficiency of a social security system with earning tests focusing on the leisure–work choices of older men. Given empirical findings that health status and social security benefits are the most important determinants of such choices, we incorporated risks with respect to health status into an overlapping–generations model, and analysed how allocative efficiency was changed by the introduction of social security systems. It was found that the effects of a social security system can be broken down into particular categories and that a social security system improves efficiency when the pension system is small. JEL Classification Numbers: H55, I10, E40.     

Explaining Growth: A Contest Between Models

Recent contributions to the empirical growth literature show no tendency to convergence in specification, as researchers seek to identify new variables that can account for significant regional effects in earlier work. We conduct non-nested tests between the models of Barro (1997), Easterly and Levine (1997) and Sachs and Warner (1997). The data strongly prefer an encompassing model, but fail to reject any of the candidate models, implying that each model represents a partial truth. We identify a model that includes most (but not all) of the regressors in the candidate models and is robust to the inclusion of regional dummies.     

Money,inflation, and optimal economic growth

Using a two-asset model of a growing competitive economy, it is shown that the optimal growth path can be achieved via a policy operating exclusively on the rate of growth of the money stock.     

The long-run consequences of minimum wage regulation in a monetary economy

This paper investigates the long-run implications of minimum wage regulation on the growth process with monetary repercussions. The paper shows, among other results, that if the minimum wage floor (MWF) is sufficiently low, then the qualitative behavior of the dynamic path is similar to the case of full employment in which the steady state is a saddle point, and that if the MWF is sufficiently high, the economy decays all the way toward the origin.     

International linkage of inflation rates in a dynamic general equilibrium

This paper uses the Neumeyer?CYano??s monetary dynamic general equilibrium model to investigate the inter-connectivity of the world economy through bond holding beyond national borders. The possibility that unexpected inflation in one country transmits to another is demonstrated within a framework in which the nominal exchange rate is flexibly determined so that the purchasing power parity holds. Deflation can also be imported through the same channel. Whether inflation or deflation diffuses internationally depends on the level of fiscal deficit. Although a country may suffer from monetary disturbances from abroad, each country can completely defend itself by implementing appropriate fiscal policies.