It has long been recognized that the pleasure of consuming a good may be affected by the consumption choice of other consumers. At least two types of motivations may explain such a behavior. In some cases social pressures may lead to conformity; while in some other cases individuals may feel the...

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,...

In this paper we study the optimal design of a long term care policy in a setting that includes three types of care to dependent parents: public nursing homes, financial assistance by children and assistance in time by children. The instruments are public nursing homes and subsidies to aiding...

This paper investigates the effectiveness of matching grants to correct for interjurisdictional spillovers in the light of Bernheim general neutrality result. Indeed this result suggests that the usual argument that matching grants are needed to internalize the externality arising from the...

This paper studies the incidence of tax-transfer policy in a growth model wherein individuals differ according to their level of intergenerational altruism and have an endogenous labor supply. The main results is that public debt is neutral at the macro level but redistributes resources from...

There have been many criticisms of Barro's theorem on Ricardian equivalence, but these criticisms apply mainly to a "special form" of Barro's model and there are different possible interpretations of this model. We study another very simple model in which altruism is limited. The effects of...

This paper proposes a simple OLG model which is consistent with the essential facts about consumer behavior, capital accumulation and wealth distribution, and yields some new and surprising conclusions about fiscal policy. By considering a society in which individuals are distinguished according...

This paper examines the long-run behavior of an overlapping-generations model with a population consisting of altruistic and non-altruistic agents. It also studies the effect of fiscal policy on aggregate capital accumulation and on the welfare of both types of agents. It shows that an increase...