Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss the valuation of human needs within a given hierarchy. An important distinction is made between private utility and social relevance of needs. Design/methodology/approach – The authors consider a generic hierarchy of needs in a world of...

Purpose – Recent literature has been able to include into standard optimal growth models some hypotheses that allow for the generation of endogenous long-run fluctuations. This paper aims to contribute to this endogenous business cycles literature by considering social interactions....