Melitz and Ottaviano (2008) predicts a monotonic relation between productivity and markups. When including revenue taxes, however, this relation is non-monotonic and depends on taxes. Even without taxes, productivity and markups can be non-monotonic depending on how non-homotheticity is modeled.

We analyze the formality benefits through productivity-enhancing public goods. We document that: benefits from formality matter for firms’ optimal decisions; there is a disconnect between the objectives of maximizing formality versus welfare; this disconnect is mitigated under higher formality...

This paper investigates the dynamic consequences of demographic change and various pension reform scenarios for Austria. The analysis is based on a computable overlapping-generations model with life-cycle labor supply, savings, and search unemployment. The public sector is decomposed into...

It has been believed that a social security system (SSS) is harmful to economic growth. However, it has been recognized recently that a SSS can encourage economic growth if the engine of the growth is human-capital accumulation. This paper uses an analytical model à la Uzawa/Lucas to examine...

By allowing for investment activities by research and development (R&D) firms to prevent product obsolescence, we show that if legal patent protection is too strong, a higher R&D subsidy rate delivers insufficient investments for survival in the R&D sector, depressing innovation and growth in...

We develop a geographic growth model where nominal wages are allowed to diverge between the two considered countries. Removing the standard assumption entailing that both countries always own a traditional sector, we argue that, as trade gets freer, the traditional sector of one country might...

This paper examines the welfare-maximizing degree of patent protection in a growth model where the engines of economic growth are R&D and public services. The result shows that if public services are small, the welfare-maximizing level of patent protection is weaker.

This paper analyses a model of overlapping generations in which agents who are not in the labor market are unable to borrow. An increase in a fully funded pension raises aggregate savings since private savings are not crowded out one-for-one. Labor force participation is determined endogenously,...

In a Barro-type economy with exogenous consumption aspirations, raising income taxes favors growth even in the presence of lump-sum taxes. Such a policy is compatible with the behavior of private consumption, income taxes and growth rates observed in actual economies.

This paper presents and analyzes an endogenous growth model with public capital and progressive taxation. Two versions are considered: The first version assumes that the budget of the government is balanced at each point of time. The second allows for public debt but asserts that the ratio of...