Taxes on inheritances may induce heirs to discontinue family firms. Becausefirm dissolution incurs transaction costs, a preferential tax treatment of transferredfamily businesses seems to be desirable from a macroeconomic viewpoint.The support of dynastic succession, however, entails also a cost...

This paper develops a comprehensive endogenous growth framework to determinethe optimal mix of growth policies. The analysis is novel in that we captureimportant elements of the tax-transfer system and fully take into account transitionaldynamics in our numerical analysis. Currently, for...

Previous research on optimal R&D subsidies has focussed on the long run.This paper characterizes the optimal time path of R&D subsidization in a semi-endogenous growth model, by exploiting a recently developed numerical method.Starting from the steady state under current R&D subsidization in the...

In this paper we analyze the distribution of fertility rates across theworld using parametric mixture models. We demonstrate the existence of twinpeaks and the division of the world's countries in two distinct components: ahigh-fertility regime and a low fertility regime. Whereas the signicance...

This study provides a unied growth theory to correctly predictthe initially negative and subsequently positive relationship between child mortalityand net reproduction observed in industrialized countries over the courseof their demographic transitions. The model captures the intricate...

This paper theoretically investigates how community approval or disapprovalaects school attendance and child labor and how aggregate behavior of thecommunity feeds back towards the formation and persistence of an anti- (or pro-)schooling norm. The proposed community-model continues to take...

This article investigates economic performance when enforceable propertyrights are missing and basic needs matter for consumption. It suggests anew view of the so-called voracity eect according to which windfall gains inproductivity induce behavior that leads to lower economic growth. Takinginto...

In an inuential article Tornell and Lane (1999) considered an economy populatedby multiple powerful groups in which property rights in the formal sectorof production are not protected. They obtained conditions under which thegroups appropriate output from the formal sector in order to invest it...

The output multiplier turns negative before a deficit spending program expires.We show the generality of this unpleasant finding for the standard real business cyclemodel. We then calibrate an extended model for the US and demonstrate how fiscalstimulus slows down economic recovery from...

Unied growth theory predicts that the timing of the fertility transitionis a key determinant of contemporary comparative development, as itmarks the onset of the take-o to sustained growth. Neoclassical growth theorypresupposes a take-o, and explains comparative development by variationsin...