Corruption is thought to prevent poor countries from catching-up. We analyze one channel through which corruption hampers growth: public investment can be distorted in favor of specific types of spending for which rent-seeking is easier and better concealed. To study this distortion, we propose...

This paper analyses a growth model wherein saving results from bequestas-consumption. It first looks at the market equilibrium and at the optimal solution. Then it turns to the issue of decentralizing the optimal solution with various taxes and transfers. Depending on the available instruments,...

We provide sufficient conditions on the objective functional and the constraint functions under which the Lagrangean can be represented by a L exp.1 sequence of multipliers in infinite horizon discrete time optimal growth models.

We endogenize the discount rate via a broad measure of wealth and provide empirical evidence that wealth affects the discount rate negatively. We demonstrate that the Pontryagin conditions require positive felicity for intuitive results, whereasthe concavity of the Hamiltonian requires negative...

We develop an overlapping generations growth model in which the individuals care about the environment. Many environmental policies suffer from institutional failures. We focus on the failure resulting from the delegation by the government of the exercise of the environmental policy to an...

In this paper we study the optimal growth path and its decentralization in a two-sector overlapping- generations model with pollution. One sector (power generation) is polluting and the other (final good) is not. Pollution is regulated by tradable emission permits. The issue is whether the...