We develop a spatial model of energy exploitation where energy sources are differentiated by their geographic location and energy density. The spatial setting creates a scaling law that magnifies the importance of differences across energy sources. As a result, renewable sources twice as dense,...

The Dasgupta-Heal-Solow-Stiglitz model of capital accumulation and resource depletion poses the following sustainability problem: is it feasible to sustain indefinitely a level of consumption that is bounded away from zero? We provide a complete technological characterization of the...

Value function iteration is one of the standard tools for the solution of the Ramsey model. We compare six different ways of value function iteration with regard to speed and precision. We find that value function iteration with cubic spline interpolation between grid points dominates the other...

We study an investment experiment conducted with a representative sample of German households. Respondents invest in a safe asset and a risky asset whose return is tied to the German stock market. Experimental investments correlate with beliefs about stock market returns and exhibit desirable...

This paper is the first to estimate a causal effect of immigrant students’ reading performance on their math performance. To overcome endogeneity issues due to unobserved ability, we apply an IV approach exploiting variation in age-at-arrival and the linguistic distance between origin and...

We derive a general optimal income tax formula when individuals respond along both the intensive and extensive margins and when income effects can prevail. Individuals are heterogeneous across two dimensions: their skill and their disutility of participation. Preferences over consumption and...

We study numerically the inter- and intra-generational welfare consequences of alternative pension fund policies in response to unexpected demographic, financial and macro-economic shocks. Our analysis is based on an applied many-generation OLG model describing a small-open economy with...

We calibrate a sequence of four nested models to study the dynamics of wealth accumulation. Individuals maximize a utility function whose arguments are consumption and investment. They desire to accumulate wealth for its own sake – this is not a life-cycle model. A competitive firm produces a...