Contrary to the models of deterministic life cycle saving, we take it for granted that uncertainty of one's future is the essential problem of saving decisions. However, unlike the stochastic life cycle models, we capture this crucial uncertainty by a non-Bayesian scenario-based satisï¬cing...

We study time preferences in a real-effort experiment with a one-month horizon. We report that two thirds of choices suggest negative time preferences. Moreover, choice reversal over time is common even if temptation plays no role. We propose and measure three distinct concepts of choice...

This paper addresses the question of whether government procurement can work as a de facto innovation policy tool. We develop an endogenous growth model with quality-improving innovation that incorporates industries with heterogeneous innovation sizes. Government demand in high-tech industries...

Innovations in information- and telecommunication technology render the proximity requirement between business partners obsolete and make business service outsourcing via cross-border trade more feasible. Although the (service-led) growth prospects have been widely discussed, evidence at the...

An AIDS epidemic threatens Ethiopia with a long wave of premature adult mortality, and thus with an enduring setback to capital formation and economic growth. The authors develop a two-sector model with three overlapping generations and intersectorally mobile labor, in which young adults...

This paper investigates the relevance of government purchasing behavior for innovation-based economic growth. We construct a parsimonious Schumpeterian growth model in which demand from the public sphere can effectively alter the economy's rate of technological change. We incorporate results of...

We formulate a model that explicitly separates two functions in the innovation process: The introduction of new goods and the quality improvement of existing goods. While the latter is performed by the corporate R+D sector, the first is performed by entrepreneurs. We show that in a three sector...

The issue of poverty traps is assessed using quantile regression. For that an augmentation of the usual convergence regressions by quadratic and cubic terms is used with emphasis on curve fitting rather than parameter estimation. The results show that the generic mechanism leading to poverty...

In economic development, long-run structural change among the three main sectors of an economy follows a typical pattern with the primary sector (agriculture, mining) first dominating, followed by the secondary sector (manufacturing) and finally by the tertiary sector (services) in terms of...

Empirical studies show that agents often violate Bayes' rule in updating probability expectations. This paper deals with errors in combining observations with prior knowledge. Such errors neccessarily occur when agents have limited information-processing capacities. It is shown that rational...