We investigate the effect of higher education on the evolution of inequality. In so doing we propose a novel overlapping generations model with three social classes: the rich, the middle class, and the poor. We show that there is an initial phase in which no social class invests in higher...

We introduce automation into the standard Solovian model of capital accumulation and show that (i) there is the possibility of perpetual growth, even in the absence of technological progress; (ii) the long-run economic growth rate declines with population growth, which is consistent with the...

We analyze the impact of increasing longevity on technological progress within an R&D-based endogenous growth framework and test the model's implications on OECD data from 1960 to 2011. The central hypothesis derived in the theoretical part is that - by raising the incentives of households to...

We study the effects of a labor-intensive health care sector within an R&D-driven growth model with overlapping generations. Health care increases longevity and labor participation/productivity. We examine under which conditions expanding health care enhances growth and welfare. Even if the...

We introduce publicly funded education into R&D-based economic growth theory. Our framework allows us to i) explicitly describe a realistic process of human capital accumulation within these types of growth models, ii) reconcile semi-endogenous growth theory with the empirical evidence on the...

We analyze the economic consequences for less developed countries of investing in female health. In so doing we introduce a novel micro-founded dynamic general equilibrium framework in which parents trade off the number of children against investments in their education and in which we allow for...

We analyze the effects of automation on the wages of high-skilled and low-skilled workers and thereby on the evolution of wage inequality. Our model explains the simultaneous presence of i) increasing per capita income, ii) declining real wages of low-skilled workers, and iii) an increasing...

We estimate state-dependent government spending multipliers for the United States. We use a Factor-Augmented Interacted Vector Autoregression (FAIVAR) model. This allows us to capture the time-varying monetary policy characteristics including the recent zero interest rate lower bound (ZLB)...

We estimate government spending multipliers in demand- and supply-driven recessions for the Euro Area. Multipliers in a moderately demand-driven recession are 2-3 times larger than in a moderately supply-driven recession, with the difference between multipliers being non-zero with very high...