This paper studies the possibilities of technical progress to deal with the growth limit problem imposed by the usage of non-renewable energy resources, when physical capital production is relatively more energy-intensive than consumption. In particular, this work presents the conditions under...

We bridge the gap between the standard theory of growth and the mostly static theory of corruption. Some public investment can be diverted from its purpose by corrupt individuals. Voters determine the level of public investment subject to an incentive constraint equalizing the returns from...

The purpose of this paper is to provide a critical evaluation of theoretical modelshowing that shifting from pay-as-you-go to funded social security schemes can be made Pareto-improving. Further, it argues that what often makes a reform toward funded schemes attractive is a number of additional...

We consider a two-period overlapping generations model in which individual voters differ not only according to age but also productivity. In such a setting, a (redistributive) Pay-As-You-Go system is politically sustainable, even when the interest rate is larger than the rate of population growth .

It is generally accepted that moving from an unfunded to a funded social security system implies a welfare loss for the trasition generation, that is the generation that has to pay twice: first, saving for this own retirement and second, contributing to the pensions of the then retired...

In a dynamic general equilibrium setup, this paper highlights the role of vintages and creative destruction in business fluctuations. By stressing the forward-looking characteristic of the optimal scrapping rule, we use a standard rational expectations argument to show the constancy of the...

This paper shows that the development from an agricultural regime through industrialization to a manufacturing regime occurs simultaneously to the demographic transition and the change in labor structure towards an increasing fraction of skilled labor due to technological progress. The...

For a given technology, two ways are available to achieve low polluting emissions: reducing production per capita or reducing population size. This paper insists on the tension between the former and the latter. Controlling pollution either through Pigovian taxes or through tradable quotas...

The Ramsey model of economic growth is revisited from the point of view of viability. A viable state is a state from which there exists at least one tra jectory that remains in the set of constraints of minimal consumption and positive wealth. Viability is presented with a constraint of minimal...