We use two stage optimal control techniques to solve some adoption problems. We first consider the case of an isolated economy, which therefore takes its decisions in exclusive accordance with its own preferences and constraints. The planner has to decide whether the economy has to switch to a...

We are concerned by the dynamic demographic and economic consequences of epidemics, and to this end, we consider a general overlapping generations model which allows for several epidemic configurations. People live for three periods, successively as children, junior adults and senior adults. A...

In some real-life intertemporal decision problems, which include a country's central-bank interest-rate determination problem, optimisation might be an unsuitable solution procedure in that it suggests a unique ``optimal'' solution for problems where many solutions could be "satisficing". This...

The transition from economic stagnation to sustained growth is often modelled thanks to "population-induced" productivity improvements, which are assumed rather than derived from primary assumptions. In this paper, the effect of population on productivity is derived from optimal behavior. Both...